This is, I believe, the only forum on the internet where I feel my opinion on rejecting technology won't be pooh poohed. I've read thousands and thousands of books in my time, invariably all on paperback, but I have on occasion read on an electronic device.
My father several years ago bought a tablet computer and installed one of these electronic reading programs, and I scorned him terribly at the time, but have somewhat come to understand why. I've shelves full of books, to the extent where I'm seriously considering reinforcing the 350 year old timbers in my house, but at the end of the day, it's simply impossible to take them anywhere. I went to bruges recently with our lass, and I took two books with me; A Christmas Carol by Dickens, and some pulp fiction I bought in morrisons on the way to take the dogs to the kennels. These lasted me until halfway on the train from brussels to bruges, then I was left in the dark. I discovered on my phone (iphone 5, not with any e-reader software) a copy of the complete Hornblower works by C.S Forester, and this satisfied every quiet moment I had until about a week ago.
It's not something I would regularly bother with, but I must admit, this saved me a hell of a lot of hassle trying to find something to read in a foreign country. I would never pay hundreds of dollars for a device to do this, and do this alone, as the first generation kindles did, and pretty much everything that is coded for kindles has been coded for .pdf, which is readable on any modern smartphone. Don't buy either the kindle or the 'nook' (which I had not heard of until I read this thread and googled it), just spend 10 minutes on a search engine and download it to your phone, then buy vast amounts of tobacco with the money saved.
