A few weeks ago I gushed to you about my love for the Kindle. This morning I read an article by Tim Challies (author of The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion) about some of the downfalls of ebooks. Challies makes some excellent points, including that ebooks cannot easily be passed down when you die, and they cannot be dog-eared and marked up. Since I rarely make notes in a book (maybe that’s why I don’t remember half of what I read?) the second point doesn’t apply to me. I like the idea of purchasing physical copies of the few books that make an impact. Here is an except from the article:
I love my Kindle for light reading, for enjoying a good novel or a Christian living kind of book. But books that I am going to return to again and again and books I would want to leave behind as part of my legacy, those are volumes I still want to have in printed editions, sitting in my office, accessible to all, able to outlive me, able to represent me.
Regarding this topic, here is a reply that I posted to a friend interested in purchasing a Kindle. This information would be helpful to those who are interested in basic email checking away from home, sort of a “poor-man’s iPad”.
Some additional information that might be helpful: you can also “surf” the web on a kindle. It’s extremely slow, but under the experimental section is a basic web browser. It wouldn’t be something to replace your regular computer by any means, but I mention it because it might be helpful to certain people who are often away from home and wouldn’t mind the tedium in exchange for checking email or news. I’m not sure how much the upgrade to 3G costs for the kindle, but it’s worth checking into. A quick google search will bring up more information on this aspect of the kindle.
The Maxwell House 
April 25, 2012 at 9:08 pm
i love to stay in the dark ages as much as possible… i love seeing a book shelf full of books that are marked up from front to back!
April 26, 2012 at 8:40 pm
I have written that article so many times in my head! But I’ve decided that I can get away with the best of both. I could use the Kindle for those books which contain info that will one day be obsolete (i.e. current political/financial/dated info). These are books I don’t plan on ever reading again. I can also use it for books others add to our classic book club’s reading list, but are books I’m not personally interested in. If I read it on the Kindle (possibly for FREE!) and LOVE it, I can always order the physical copy later.
Of course I’ll always keep physical books. There is something satisfying about being able to underline and write in the margins in books I’ll return to again and again, and pass down to my children’s children’s children (full of wise, hand-written comments ;-).
April 27, 2012 at 6:47 am
I want to be a thoughtful book-marker, I really do. You ladies will have to give me a lesson sometime.
April 27, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I’m afraid your aversion to marking in books is my fault. Remember when you circled all the words you could read in my old Dick and Jane? Okay, I over-reacted. Neen, it is okay to mark in books!
April 28, 2012 at 1:44 pm
This comment explains so much! Alas, the damage has been done. No book marking for me. That’s alright, I’m content. I don’t even remember when that happened, but I’ll try to keep it in mind when one of the boys inevitably does the same thing.
May 1, 2012 at 8:11 pm
One kinda crazy thing I found was that having my Bible on the Kindle for over a year now, I am having a terrible time trying to manually look up text. When I read I physically know where it is by where it is located on the page. I must be a visual learner. Whereas, I love that my personal notes, sermon notes, and convictions are right in the text where I am reading in the Bible. And I also love that I can do a manual search for “discipleship” and find all my notes on discipleship. I am a losing the battle for the where is that in the Bible. Ugh. I am going to go back to paper for my personal studying.
May 3, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Ella, I’ve had a similar experience, mostly when I’m talking about Jesus with some JW’s who regularly stop by. Even though applicable versus come to mind during our discussion, it does take my fingers longer to walk to the correct location than it did a year ago. However for my current year of “drinking scripture through a firehouse” a la Horner’s Bible study method, the kindle gets me through chapters quicker. I think when I finish later this year I’ll swap back to my paper Bible. It makes me smile to think of these changing times and imagining an atheist in the future arguing “but this Biblical data chip has been altered by humans over the centuries, it isn’t the same words that were written down originally”. I smile, because that argument will still be false. How God protects his word just amazes me.
June 11, 2012 at 10:18 am
I still haven’t jumped into the e-reader scene, but am back at your blog once again. I’ve done some reading of reviews and have a few questions for you. I don’t plan to use it for books, like the Bible, that I need to write and take notes about. I *think* I’ve read that it has a built-in google search option. I don’t want that for my kids. I don’t want them to be able to get on the internet while reading. I don’t want games or apps. They have enough temptations on the computers. We are not after audio books either. I strictly want BOOKS. Is there a way to disable the search feature on your Kindle? (The basic $79 model is what I’m looking at.)
Thanks! Also, any other thoughts and opinions you have after having used it for a while are also welcome!
June 20, 2012 at 6:52 am
Alright Sarah, I’ve finally tested your issue (I hadn’t ever noticed that search feature in the menu), and it’s easily overcome by enabling the parental controls function in the settings. I think I’ll keep mine on for now too 🙂 we are still LOVING our kindles, particularly now that we’ve discovered how many ebooks are offered on Listen Alaska through the local library. There aren’t many good theological books, but there are a wealth of biographies and general nonfiction available. For example, my husband “borrowed” and is reading through the younger Bush’s autobiography, and I have been perusing books on gardening and raising chickens. It’s quick and easy to check out the books on listen Alaska, although you need to do the checking out on a computer or tablet and then “send” them to the kindle through amazon.
Now, for you to give me some advice. Can you recommend any good early chapter series, particularly for boys? We’re eating up books around here, and i’m having a hard time finding quality stuff for this young age. I’m sure it exists, I’m just not sure where!
August 13, 2012 at 10:19 am
Oh man! I just stumbled upon this very old response to my comment back in stinkin’ JUNE! Thanks for the info. We got the Kindle and I do love it…in just the very way I hoped I would. The kids haven’t really used it yet, but I’m looking forward to the fact that my oldest two can use it to read books required for their online classes without waiting for them to arrive in the mail.
Hhhmmm…early chapter series…I’ve struggled with that too, for my boys. We have (mostly) enjoyed The Boxcar Children series and Anna has loved the Lucy series (Lucy on the Loose, etc.) which is about a boy and his dog named Lucy (our dog’s name!) Ryley really liked the Hardy Boys series as a youngish reader, but my other boys haven’t really gotten into that one. Also, Tom Swift has been a fun one. I’ll think about it and let you know if I come up with more.