I just bought myself an early birthday present: a Kindle! →[More:]

I wasn't thrilled with the original design, but this "next generation" Kindle seems way cool. I originally was going to get a Sony Reader (I love my Sony Vaio mini), but the ability to download books, not to mention newspapers and magazines, directly to the Kindle anywhere, anytime through their free WiFi, sold me. The Sony does have a cool touch screen, where you can turn pages with the flick of a finger, but no WiFi, a shorter warranty, and less of a selection still puts it below the Kindle, in my view.

And if you're feeling lazy, the Kindle can even read to you (in your choice of a male or female voice, no less). It's like having your own personal bedtime story anytime you want! The Kindle also has a sharper screen than the Sony and a built-in dictionary (touch any word and the definition appears at the bottom of the screen). Plus, the Kindle holds up to 1,500 books and Amazon backs up your own personal library, including any notes you've made in books, indefinitely. How cool is that? So many books are free or very low cost, too.

It's so awesomely Star Trek I can hardly stand it. I can get the NY Times "delivered" right to my Kindle each day, if I want (which is great, since I hate news ink on my fingers), for $14.99 a month (or buy individual issues), and The New Yorker for $1.99 a month. I know they're not cheap, these things ($359 before taxes and leather case), but why don't more people have them? It should pay for itself in book savings in no time. I'd LOVE to have about forty of them for my school. It would be a magnificent tool for raising literacy, with its read-aloud and dictionary features, not to mention wide selection of books. And no storage problems or lost or damaged books ever. For schools, it's the way to go. (I could totally see a larger color tablet format for children's books, too; there's already a larger size available. And how much lighter and cheaper would digital textbooks be? The possibilities are endless.)

But best of all, I can take Infinite Jest on the train and on vacation with me without getting a hernia! Can you tell I'm excited? Yeah, excited. It'll be here in three days! Weeeeeeeee!