I broke down and bought a Kindle in anticipation of an upcoming trip. It's enroute. Last I saw on Amazon, it had left Illinois. One of the neat things about the device is that even as it sits in a box in a truck, I can order books on Amazon that will download wirelessly into my Kindle. When it arrives I'll already have a number of books loaded up on it.

The downside is I keep finding books to order that are not available on the Kindle, quite a few really. For example, Pozen's "Too Big to Save: How to Fix the U.S. Financial System" is not available on the Kindle. This is not some obscure book. It's recently released. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is also not available.*

I've been ordering a variety of free books, including Origins of the Species and the Canterbury Tales. I'll be curious when I receive my Kindle if free electronic books are very well done.

Finally, I ordered an old Donald Westlake book that one never sees in a brick and mortar store. That alone may be worth the price of the Kindle. I'll report back, of course.

*I had never read it and figured I was too old to enjoy it but a friend suggested I check it out so I started reading an old hardcover my Dad gave me many years ago. But, I don't want to lug that door stop on my trip. So far, I find Rand melodramatic but it does have a certain charm. Of course, I'm only a fifth of the way through the 1000 pages so we'll see if the charm lasts.