Gary V. Powell, Author

So, Mary bought me a Kindle for Christmas. I was hot for it. I spend a lot of may day writing articles and stories and novel chapters and training programs on the damn computer. You'd think I'd have had my fill of electronics. But, no, I wanted that Kindle.

Good wife that she is, she bought it for me.

Here's the deal...I love it. It's probably not for everyone, but it's for me.

I read a lot both for business and pleasure. So far  since Christmas, I've read three books on the Kindle--ordered them at the Amazon Kindle store, bought them for about half the price of the print versions, and had them sent to me in a flash. There they are on my little device, not much bigger than a tablet, easy to use, easy on the eyes. The other day, I was on the computer researching an article for a client. I wanted a book from Amazon right that minute. I normally would have had it in two days. I got in in an instant, no shipping costs, half price. That quick. And, if I want, I can synch my Kindle and my computer to make the book easier to reference as I work.

Mary bought the nifty leather cover that goes with it and I bought a neat little night light that makes reading in the dark possible. I even look cool at the coffee shop.

No more jamming heavy hard covers in my brief case on business travel. No more falling asleep with some heavy tome on my chest. I hate paper book covers and the first thing I do is remove the damn things from my books--but then I lack the gumption to throw them away. No more book covers littering my night stand drawer. No more wondering where I'm going to keep all these books--the Kindle stores a library of about 3,000 books.

I don't have to worry about finding my place anymore or dog-earing pages. Kindle does that for me. I can make notes and underline as I go--Kindle keeps track for me. No more scrawls I can't read the next morning with the brilliant idea or observation I had a 3:00 AM.

My only complaint about the Kindle is that some books I'd like are not available--but I'm amazed that how many are. I was able to buy Tobias Wolff's first collection of short stories on Kindle and have it in an instant. B&N had a two week wait. That's Mr. Wolff's photo in the corner.

There are other readers out there, but Kindle rules. It rules because Amazon has a corner on the market and has a pretty damn good reader. The big New York city publishers got caught napping. Amazon can dictate to them that they must have a Kindle version of a new book, if they want to have shelf space for their hardcover on Amazon. And, guess what, if I want to have a short story collection published and placed in the Kindle store, Amazon will do that for me. I'm my own publisher.

I realize Kindle is just the beginning. In a few years, I'll remember it fondly, like the Apple 68K computer I bought years ago to write on. It crashed a lot, didn't print well to the spool printer, had a terrible screen, and was slow. But I loved it. I loved being able to be write and print a story without having to send it to a typist and make copies etc. etc.  New generations of e-book readers will come along, like the next version of the IPad. You'll be able to have video, audio, and text embedded on the same "page." You'll be able to interract with the book you're reading.

If you don't like that "New Yorker" ending to a story, just change it to something that works for you.