For a long while, I didn’t read much. It may sound cliche’, but my prior 9-5 job required manual labor and truth be told more hours than 9-5. I never considered myself much of a reader, but college changed that. Still not loving the idea of reading for fun, I fell in love with a new reason to read. To learn.
Enter the workforce: Long 10+ hour days. When I get home, I’m tired. It’s hard to make the time to read. Still as a student of life, I find myself purchasing books in various subjects from time to time with the best of intentions. What I’ve found was the bulk of them went unread. Sure I burned through some of the interesting ones, but the others still litter my bookshelves occupying valuable real estate like it was the thing to do.
Recently I came into a predicament. Studying for a new license at work, I was given 50 PDF files totaling well over 1500 pages. Even as a blogger, that is far too much for me to read on a computer. I thought about printing it, but I even if I printed it out cheaply, it would cost around $50-75. Before going through with it, a third option came to me. An e-reader. At 120$ (now $99) I’d only spend an extra $30ish more than if I were to print it myself. And unlike traditional print, I could re-use the e-reader. I ended up purchasing a Kindle, converting all the PDF’s to the Kindle format.
Why I chose the kindle over say the Nook, Kobo, or Sony. This is a subject for another topic, that I may do later. but here are some bullet points. Sony makes an ok reader, but it’s a bit costly compared to the Kindle or Nook. The Kobo has potential, but falls short when compared to any other reader. The Nook is a solid product, backed by a reputable book store, but it still has the same nagging issues with the page turn speed. Yes they’ve updated the firmware two times to try to fix it, and its better, but it still is slow in contrast to the rest. NOTE: As nice e-readers are, I still prefer a book just because I can physically flip to where I want.
A lagging turn page, for me, is just a turn off. Nook owners will boast that it has the largest library of available books. This is only partly true. B&N sells more books than say Amazon. But even with the Kindle using a propitiatory book format, its a simple fix. You can find software to convert a e-book to work on your e-reader.
The silver lining: Calibre (http://www.calibre-ebook.com) is a Library Management Software. Its free and its Open Source. You can use it to convert PDF’s to AZW, Mobi, Epub etc… It also allows you to search for books being sold at the cheapest price, and it will (when possible) show you the DRM rights that are set on the book BEFORE you purchase it.
I’m not trying to convert people to the Kinlde, or even to e-readers as a whole. I’m just letting you know that its super convenient to have just about any book you could ever want on you at all times. And if you want to read more, or learn more, this is the best way I know how to do it.
