This is hard to admit in pubic, but I’m finally coming out.
After telling my book club, my children, and the English major in me that real books are better, I’ve been sneaking around with a Kindle.
I’d like to say the confession is about integrity. But actually I owe my honesty to the public library. Last month, they finally added the Kindle to the e-readers where they’ll plant your book for free.
Before that, I felt purely self-indulgent having one. I hated fessing up that I was a person who couldn’t delay gratification. But the fact was I couldn’t wait even three days for an Amazon shipper to send me a book. And I sure couldn’t wait for the library to announce, when I was in Timbuktu, that the book I requested two months ago was finally back on the shelf – please pick it up in five days.
With free downloads from the library, all that has changed. I can be impatient and a paragon of fiscal integrity at the same time.
“The Kindle is less expensive than some,” I can say. “And the downloads are free. I could be at an airport somewhere needing a book and get it for free right from my library!”
The explanation will be impressive. Everyone associates airports with day-old $12 sandwiches swathed in Saran wrap.
“She’s obviously saving a bundle,” they will think.
I will probably not spoil the good news by letting them know what I was pained to discover. You have to get on the library wait-list for the most popular e-books, too. I assumed that since they travel through the air, they are sort of like molecules – in unlimited supply.
Not so. Each library has just so many licenses for each book. A quick look online tells me I’ll still have to wait for the hottest business books by Daniel Pink. But ta-dah! I can download Frommer’s Cambodia and Laos today.
I also pictured these e-books living on my Kindle forever once I captured them in mid-air. How could there be due dates or fines?
Again, not so.
The cruel realty is that the e-book, like the real book, has a due date. When it comes, Poof!. The book is gone. On the happy side, there is no book inside to amass fines or guilty secrets. A Kindle, left under the passenger seat of the car, does not become a guilt trip or a second mortgage.
Imagine, though, that I’ve been so engrossed in some 500-page mystery that I’ve missed the e-mail notice that my book is about to go Poof! And just before I find out who dun it, it’s gone.
No more can I just read on and pay the fine. I must rush back online and pray no one has requested my digital copy, so I can grab it again. If it’s spoken for, then back to the old delayed gratification dilemma. Can I wait to know who dun it? Or will I pay Amazon $12 or so for an instant answer?
Who knows. With a little restraint, maybe I can splurge on an iPad.
Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder
