Ever since Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook e-reader, my gadget lust has been flaring something awful. They're so compact and nifty-looking. Plus the thought of being able to search and annotate hundreds of books at once makes me a little tingly. I want one. I think. Maybe not.
The trouble with me is, I only buy books once I've read them. And then I defy organizational conventions by arranging them chronologically on my shelves, so that browsing my personal library is akin to a book-spine version of This Is Your Life. Which is probably why I love shelf-gazing so much - I revere my bookshelves the way most people cherish their family photo albums.
Somehow, I doubt flicking through an alphabetical series of virtual cover images is going to be quite the same. (Although the amount of time I can spend admiring the covers in my LibraryThing catalog might indicate otherwise.)
And I further doubt that my inner cheapskate will be up for spending $5-10 apiece to acquire duplicate e-editions of dozens of books I've already paid $15-20 apiece for.
What I really want is an e-reader that will magically import every last one of my existing 752 volumes the moment I hold it near a shelf and switch it on. Because everyone wants to carry 752 books they've already read everywhere they go, right? Or imagine the joy of searching for phrases like "love handles on God" or "awesomely brainless prattle" without having to bother with the irksome task of turning pages.
*sigh*
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Currently re-reading:
Song of the Magdalene
by Donna Jo Napoli
