Kindle is loaded with surprises

A couple of weeks ago I caved and bought a Kindle reader. I’ve been using this little slab of hard plastic about a week and am ready to pronounce preliminary judgment.

I have found the Kindle experience surprising. And it has been an “experience,” entailing hours of reading.

The things I thought I would like, I don’t. And the things I like — a lot — are advantages I hadn’t even considered.

You need to know that I’ve always been a slow reader. I’ve never been able to take in quantities of text at a glance or two. I don't read ideas; I read words. One by one. On a good day after a full night’s sleep, I’m phrase by phrase. But that’s changed with the Kindle because it allows me to increase (or decrease) the size of the type and bump up (or down) the line spacing. Larger type alone results in shorter and fewer lines per page. You can even set the number of words per line.

With the Kindle I find that I’m able to absorb a single electronic page in two or three glances and then click on to the next page. I’m as fast as click....click....click.

Moreover the Kindle has led me to wonder whether my slow reading all these years had something to do with being mildly distracted by being able to see two pages at once. The one-page-at-a-time Kindle keeps me focused right where my eyes need to bed.

Sure, the pages have less text, but I know I’m reading faster, a lot faster.

Of course I like the idea of being able to carry around hundreds, even thousands, of books in a device about the size of a thin slice of bread. So far I’ve loaded my Kindle mostly with free books. There are hundreds of them, mostly classics. “Meditations” shown in the photo is an example.

I also like being able to sample a book at my leisure before I decide to buy it. Hit “sample” and you are given 20 pages or so to check out. Call it electronic book browsing.

The device has all kinds of features that I have yet to master. The Kindle User’s Guide, which, of course, is preloaded into the machine as a “book” is something of a slog, mostly because you keep wanting to try out what you’ve been instructed to do.

Believe me, the User's Guide pages can’t be comprehended in two glances.

My experiments with the features have at times left me baffled. Once I wanted to find out more about King George VI and put my cursor in front of the “King.” Silly me. The Kindle told me first about BB King and then about Billy Jean. I still have to figure out how to group the three words together to get what I want. It has to be possible.

Which brings us to the Kindle’s negatives. Strangely, this sleek little reading platter seems ergonomically cumbersome. I find it hard to find a comfortable, safe place to hold it without inadvertently clicking one of the narrow “next page” or “previous page” pads that run along both sides. And strangely enough I don’t like the slimness of the Kindle, which is advertised as an attribute. I miss the heft more akin to, well, a book.

While the type itself is very sharp and easy to read, the slight grayness of the “page” strikes me as a touch dim.

The little “five-way” navigation tool in the lower right corner is too small. For someone with larger hands than mine, it could be unnavigable. The little button-keys on the keyboard are minute pebbles. With time I’ll probably become accustomed to the Kindle’s miniaturization, but I’m not there yet.

This Kindle, a third generation WiFi-only model, is clearly a work in progress — a transitional machine. But isn’t that true of all technology? At $139, Kindle 3 seems a good entry point for jumping into and enjoying the electronic reader experience.

And think of all those free books you can download.

By the way, the books you buy (or get free) are stored on an Amazon “cloud” so that if you want to buy the next Kindle iteration (certain to have a touch screen and color), you will be able to load what you have already bought into the new device. Oh, and if you have two or three Kindles on the same Amazon account, you can share the books between the family’s readers.

I was surprised that several books aren’t available in electronic editions. One of my favorites, Gerald Durrell’s “My Family and Other Animals,” apparently didn’t make the Kindle cut. For shame!

One final note, owning a Kindle comes with a dollop of guilt. I fear that our local bookstores are going to go the way of the the blacksmith, the typewriter repair shop and the video store. Browsing on a Kindle, while fun, lacks the ambiance of a musty bookshop presided over by a bookish, graying book monger who knows exactly the book you want and can lead you to it.

No scrolling, clicking or downloading.

Morning Choices

I'm in the habit of reading the newspaper the first thing each morning.

I'm convinced it's a bad habit. So today I turned first to a random page from "The Essence of Tao," an anthology brilliantly and inspiringly compiled by Maggie Pinkney.

Above is the page, a single Marcus Aurelius quote. I pondered it over coffee and Wheaties topped with banana and apple slices.

Beneath the book is the "news" from the New York Times. I left the Times for later. Much later.

When I finally turned to the paper, I saw its wrenching, haphazard chronicle as an infinitesimal part of a universe — one that is "a single life, comprising one substance and one soul."

On starting the day: Good faith or a dancer's lost limb?

I’ve often wondered about how I start my days. Today was pretty typical.

I put the water on for the coffee then retrieved the newspapers from the stoop. I’m an old-fashioned guy, but I could have easily clicked in to the computer. Later I did just that.

As usual, the headlines set the tone for my Wheaties and Grapenuts.

“Employers’ health care maze” read the Oregonian’s main headline.

Another read, ambiguously, “Vatican reveals its procedures for abuse.”

The front of the New York Times offered:

“Civilians Killed as U.S. Troops Hit Afghan Bus”

“Leg Lost, Dancer Is Caught Between Caregivers.”

All this before my first cup of coffee. Bitter stuff.

It took Thomas Jefferson to bring me around.

Today is Jefferson’s birthday, a matter of singular note in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. The Almanac’s extended entry quoted Jefferson, writing John Adams, on the very topic of how to start my day.

"I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus (“A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man”) and Thucydides (“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”), for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier."

As substitutes for The Times and The Oregonian, I’ve considered Marcus Aurelius and Lao Tzu, among others.

Imagine starting the day with one of these:

Here’s Aurelius: “Whenever you notice someone else going astray, immediately turn and examine how you yourself have gone astray” or “For each thing you do, stop and ask yourself if death is to be feared because it deprives you of this.”

Try Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: “Those who are of good faith I have faith in. Those who are lacking in good faith I also have faith in. In so doing I gain in good faith.” Or “Much speech leads inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void.”

We can be grateful that Jefferson, born on this day in 1743, chose to live at great distance from “Leg Lost, Dancer Is Caught Between Caregivers.”

We should be equally grateful for following his path.