Today I went over to the dark side — the electronic e-reader, the Kindle. A generous Christmas gift from my brother Phillip, it has been sitting unopened on my bookshelf (interesting place for it to wind up), taunting me with possibility and with dread.

What of all the posts I’ve written about “real books”? What of my English major stand in favor of ink on paper and the codex? Are these scruples gone?

Of course not. The e-reader will always be a supplement, one more way to read a book. It will be interesting to see if I can navigate it, of course. Already I’ve had to enlist help from Tom (how to scroll) and Celia (how to return to my home page). They have rallied bravely to the cause of this technophobe. And now I have several free books in my queue (including Aristotle’s Ethics and the entire Bible!) and a couple sample chapters to peruse.

I’ve read four times more books since I got my Kindle, a friend told me a couple days ago. That’s what made me do it. Four times more books! I’m in.

Above: a more old fashioned way of retrieving books.