The Kindle and Library

Today, I would like to share my gratitude for electronic books and e-readers.  I'm especially grateful for my Kindle and the fact that I can check out library books for it.

This is a carefully chosen picture of a corner of our master bedroom, which is covered in wall-to-wall books.  My 12-year-old niece, Little Miss, actually gasped upon walking into our bedroom and seeing all the books.

A number of years ago, after Q and I combined households I tried to catalog our books so as to prevent our buying extra copies of books that the other one had purchased and I stopped when the count hit 5000.  We have gotten to the point where we have no more shelves for books and while we can replace the shelves we have with taller shelves (and I do plan to), I am glad to be able to conserve space by purchasing the books in Kindle format and still mostly get the book reading experience.  Q and I both still read and buy books in the traditional format, but this is definitely curbing the growth rate of the physical library in our house.

I also really appreciate not having to pack and unpack  my three girls four times for extra library trips (going there, arrival, leaving, getting home) when I'm waiting on a book that is in high demand or when I have finished it.  I put myself on the waiting list and it is delivered to my Kindle when it becomes available and it is deleted when I finish it.

If you haven't heard of Wowbrary, I can't recommend it enough. You sign up and it sends you emails weekly that tell you which books (physical and electronic), movies, and music are coming to your library.  You can then put yourself on the list to receive them or pick them up at the library when they become available.  It will let you browse all the way back for the past year and if you have saved the email from them that is longer than a year, it will at the very least the top 20 predicted choices for that week.  You can't get easier than this to feed your reading addiction for free.