Kindle: Cutting down the sensation of reading?

Don't you just love that new-book smell? You know it; that sweet sensation of fresh, never-creased paper that you know has been just recently sawed off the tree? The slightly tantalizing danger of potential paper cuts from the oh-so-sharp paper? Does it send shivers up your spine? Or maybe you go for that old-book feel. A little excitement always wafts in with those musty yellow colored pages, doesn't it? Don't your fingers tremble as you lift those ancient pages, knowing that someone years ago was reading the exact same thing?

No? 

Okay. Maybe I am exaggerating a bit. I mean, I guess no one really derives pleasure from potential paper cuts. But still, don't you just love books? 

I certainly do. I just ordered a copy of the major works of Gerard Manley Hopkins from Boarders, and definitely scared my sister with my cry of joy when it finally was shipped in the mail. My mom recently told me that she has a copy of poems by Orson Whitney published in the nineteenth century and I am nearly DYING to get my hands on it. 

And I know I am not alone in my obsession. As an English major I have a whole army of compadres in my flowering fetish for books. A girl in my creative writing class wrote a six-page-single-spaced essay on how much she loves the smell of books. When I went to my roommate Rebecca's house for the first time one of her first priorities was to show me her awesome collections of books. 

Books. Matter.

But does their form matter?

As I was working on my internship for the Internet Safety Project I did some research on a popular item -- the Kindle. The Kindle is an electronic reader, created by Amazon.com, that supposedly recreates the experience of reading in a digital form. No lie -- they use this technology called electronic ink that prevents glares that occur on regular screens. Lots of people love this $300 item and products such as the iPad are vying for some action on this electronic reading party.

But what about me? The average, very poor college student who is required to read more books in one semester than many people do throughout their high school career (and possibly post-grad?), what do I think?

I don't know. While I am now embracing all sorts of wonderful technological advances like, gasp!, blogging, I think it will be a lot harder to rip books from my cold, dead fingers. I love the smell of books, I like turning the pages and placing my book mark in the crease, so I know exactly where to pick up the next time. If I were a character in The Day After Tomorrow I would be the annoying library lady who says "You can't burn books!" even in the face of sure death (okay -- I would probably be Emmy Rossum first because she gets to kiss Jake Gyllenhal, but that's besides the point). Whenever I work on the computer for endless hours on research or my internship, my break involves looking at a book. Would a Kindle really offer my eyes the same release? Screens are slowly taking over my life -- can't I keep one thing sacred?

Okay, I am over reacting here. The Kindle does actually have some cool features like subscriptions to newspapers, and it would be really handy to not have to carry around textbooks everywhere, but just in case I ever do marry a millionaire and buy a Kindle, just know that there will be fifty new hardback, leather bound books to accompany sitting in my bedroom right next to it.

Oh, and a plug for my internship -- check out my article and more on the kindle.