I can’t recall a specific post, but I have to have talked about my distaste for ebooks in some capacity during some point in the (very nearly!) year I’ve been writing here.  I have thousands of books.  I love books– and I love books as physical objects, not as a carrier device for stories.

I got my wife a Kindle for either Christmas or her birthday several years ago, back when the damn things cost $300 and that sounded reasonable.  I bought it, but I refused to touch it.  I disliked the concept of e-readers that much.  I’ve softened since then; I do a decent amount of reading on my iPad, but I do a specific kind of reading on my iPad– mostly short stories or novellas or, occasionally, magazines; i.e., things that either aren’t available in print or that don’t store well.  And it goes without saying that The Benevolence Archives(*) simply would never see the light of day as a printed book; there’s no way to price it that would be both fair and profitable.  Ebooks are awesome for shorter works.  A freaking comic book costs $4 nowadays; you can’t get a 116-page document at that price.

Anyway.  It’s occurred to me in the past few days that since I’m literally trying to derive income from the Kindle’s existence nowadays, maybe it might behoove me to, y’know, own a Kindle.  So I looked into them a bit and today, being the type who really doesn’t like buying technology (or, really, much of anything) online, I swung by Best Buy on the way home to look at Kindles.

Maybe you don’t know this; I didn’t:  there are three basic flavors of the Kindle in existence.  The baseline is just called a “Kindle,” has a black and white screen, and retails for around $70.  Then there’s the “Kindle Paperwhite,” which has a screen (and front light) that is apparently vastly upgraded from the Kindle and, in general, looks like a more reputable piece of kit, which retails for around $120.  Then there’s the Kindle Fire, which has a larger screen, four times the memory, is in full color, and can access the Web and do a whole host of other stuff… for $120.

Here’s where I’m weird:  I have no desire for a Kindle Fire at all.  I have an iPad for everything the Kindle Fire can do.  I do a lot of reading in bed and the iPad is just a wee bit unwieldy for that.  The screen improvements of the Paperwhite appeal to me.  But I can’t find a reason to pay $120 for a Paperwhite when another tablet with a bigger, color screen, with better functionality, is the same price.

Or, to be clearer: I didn’t buy a Paperwhite today because something else that I don’t want was the same price.

I’m not sure that’s sound reasoning.

Feel free to make fun of me in comments.  In fact, I encourage it.

(*) Buy my stupid book!