Shiny and New - A Kindle Convert

So, in all fairness (in case you couldn't figure it out), the link at right for the Kindle is an affiliate link, so if you go there and buy a Kindle, I'll get something out of it.  Most likely it will add to my monthly Amazon Associates lists that I never get enough money for them to actually send me a check.  Still, In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that this is an affiliate link.

That said, here's the scoop of the week:  My shiny new graphite 3G Kindle arrived today.  And yes, I've already started playing with it, and comparing it to my wife's first generation Kindle (e-ink looks better and it is noticeably smaller and thinner, with same screen size).  I've even bought two books, and accidentally bought one, then clicked the "oops" button to return it, and received a handy-dandy credit back to my debit card.

So far, I like it.  I don't know about the studies I have seen that say people read slower on e-readers, because I seem to be able to read and digest the Kindle pages faster than regular book pages, and I have flown through the first couple of chapters of a Michael Connelly Harry Bosch novel faster than I think I would have done in hardcopy.  In addition to that, my two book purchases are not taking up an extra three to four inches of paper space on my shelf, which is a tremendous plus, especially at the time when my wife and I are looking to reduce clutter around the house, which will involve a multi-pronged strategy of sell, donate, recycle, trash (in that order for most things) to get rid of all the junk that has been sitting around the house for years unused.  The iPod was the first step, eliminating my need for the twelve foot stacks of CDs to grow even more as I buy music downloads directly from Amazon now (yes, Amazon, not iTunes, because I like my music DRM free and copyable to multiple devices).  The Kindle is the logical next step.

Does this mean I will never buy books again in hardcopy?  No.  But what it does mean is that those purchases can be more targeted towards "special" purchases, like my signed and numbered copy of Seth Harwood's Young Junius, or the random assortment of first edition Hardy Boys novels in my office.  And I'm not exclusively digital yet.  There's a stack of books (pictured) under my nightstand that need to be read.  But once those are gone, I can't say I'll keep picking up more books in the airport newsstands, especially if I can just pull out the Kindle and download the same title (or any other title by that author) in seconds without even removing my wallet from my pocket.

So there, I'm a convert.  How about you?  Paper or e-reader?  Which one?