I have had an e-reader for several years now; my husband bought me a Sony Reader a while ago, when it was the market share leader, and it has held up well. Some of the other faculty members here in China have new-ish Kindles and Nooks, and they made a few mistakes that I learned about a long time ago.
Here’s what you should know:
- An e-reader is great for such public domain books as classics and government publications. Also, the University of Chicago Press offers a free e-book every month. This way, you can keep your reader loaded so that you always have something good to read.
- The corollary to that: don’t assume you can buy whatever you want whenever you want. The Kindle Whispernet feature didn’t work here in China, and many people were sad because they only had one or two books loaded on their machines.
- An e-reader is ideal for a series. I’ve used it for both the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the Dance to the Music of Time series. The next book is always ready to go!
- Every so often, remove the books you’ve read so that you don’t get all discombobulated, trying to figure out what book to read next.
- The e-book version of a tour book isn’t as useful as a paper version. It’s much easier to open up a physical book to show a taxi driver where you want to go.
- Always, always, always take a paperback to read on a long flight, along with your e-reader, because otherwise, it will turn out that you forgot to charge your reader and now you have nothing to do for five hours. Trust me on this.
I’m happy with the Sony and have no plans to switch to a Nook or a Kindle, even though they both have features that mine doesn’t. Mine’s been great, and I love how it saves weight and room when traveling (even if I also have two paperback novels and a tour book).
