The first one I ever saw was online at Amazon.  Seemed ridiculous to me.  Something I would absolutely never buy.  Ever.  Period.  I never heard anyone talk about them anyway and never saw them used in public.  But, I knew they were out there simply by seeing them every time I went to Amazon.  One day, I got sick with the flu. It was my birthday and to my surprise, my husband bought one of these for me.  Uh oh.  Without even wanting to be, I was suddenly the owner of a Kindle.  Happy for the sweetness of the gesture and afraid to make a stand against technology at just that moment – seemed a bit inappropriate to refuse it at the time — I was suddenly left alone with it in my room while the rest of the family disappeared into the day.

It was sleek and smooth, with cool buttons…actually, kind of pleasant to hold.  “Nowhere near as rewarding a real book though, right?,” I thought, as I patted the book next to me.  Except that book was actually very dull – I hadn’t been enjoying at all.  Just slogging through it because I had some warped idea that because I started reading it I HAD to finish it.  I turned to my Kindle and within minutes figured out how to download samples of new books, for free.  (Great thing about Kindles is they are ready to use right away – you don’t have to charge them for 12 hours first.)  Ken Follett, James Patterson, Agatha Christie, T.S. Elliott…I read through a series of samples and finally decided on “Death on the Nile.”

Four hours later, I was deep into the Nile when I realized…I was hooked.  With the satisfying tap of the “Next Page” button throughout, I was fully and totally engrossed.  I never would have imagined that the physical experience of reading a book could so easily be replaced by something digital.  The characters were just as entertaining, the story line as intriguing…and the experience of escaping to a different world was absolutely complete.  My ability to explore the digital world was limited only by my perceptions of that experience.  In fact, I was just being stubborn; making a personal stand for traditionalism.  But, just like anything else that is new — like social media or a new digital technology – you have to try the experience before casting a judgment.