My great new #Kindle is already modifying my reading habits

The wealth of interesting free options out there for books is amazing. And already I am seeing an effect on my reading habits. I'm not buying more books (which I thought I might do), but I am also not feeling so pressed to read entire books that I get either.

A certain number of years ago I was a sucker for buying books, I had a bad habit, either in used bookstores or even regular book stores. I love to read, and I would buy books that looked interesting and then read them, and then leave them on the shelf, because you never know I might want to read them again. Even if I rarely did. This led to my amassing a rather large and unwieldy library. And regular purges and yard sales or Goodwill trips.

Then I woke up and started going to the library. This was much better, I didn't end up with a huge book collection. But, I had to go to the library pretty regularly. And if I got a book that I wanted and it took a while to read there was a chance I might not finish in time before I had to return it or face fines. So when I got a book that book became my focus, I had to read just that one book (given my limited reading time) in order to finish them.

Now I have my Kindle and I am in a combination of the above 2 situations. Given the wealth of free resources out there, and the fact that that is increasing all the time, I can get a lot of books. Which leads to my amassing a large library again. Only this time it is not using up bookshelf space, and if I decide I don't want the book it is easy to remove. But when I get a bunch of books I don't feel pressured to rush through them like I did with the library books. It is perfectly okay for me to read a little from one book, and then swap it for another, knowing I can go back when I feel like it. It has really become the best of both worlds, which will only get enhanced when the options to get e-books from the library arrive. And won't Kim be happy when I can start purging my existing bookshelf as I slowly replace the books with electronic versions?

I am glad I waited for the e-readers to become 'affordable', but I am even more glad that I have joined the future with this wonderful technology.