February 11, 2008.  That’s a day that will forever be ingrained into my memory.  I remember that specific date better than I do my own wedding anniversary, which is either May 20^th or the 21^st.  February 11^th is the day my Kindle arrived in the mail.  It was ordered for me well before Christmas, but since it was the hot ticket item that year, it was so back ordered that it arrived as more of a Valentine’s Day present instead.  Sometime before Christmas of 2007 I heard a tiny little blurb about the Kindle on the radio and couldn’t believe the kind of device that was being talked about.  I couldn’t imagine something like that actually catching on: a device that held the potential of thousands of books and periodicals that could be slipped into a purse; a device that let a person shop for just about whatever book their heart desired from the comfort of a living room or discomfort of a doctor’s office and have the book there within minutes rather than days; a device that would help gut out an entire corner of my bedroom.  I wanted one.  But this thing seemed so beautifully perfect for me and so incredibly indulgent that I couldn’t bring myself to mention it to my husband.  Amazingly, he mentioned it to me.

 He heard the same little blurb on the radio that I did as he was driving to work one morning and thought of me.  He’s not exactly the most thoughtful person when it comes to gift giving, but this beautiful little device had my name written all over it.  He couldn’t deny knowing of my passion of the written word since he was tripping all over it.  I took so many books to bed with me that it was like we slept in a twin bed with a bookshelf at the side. It’s not the he minded the extreme closeness, he just wanted to be able to get out of bed in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and not go slip-sliding his way there on books and dust covers that double as cartoon banana peels.  The day my husband heard that broadcast, he sat me down like he had some serious business to discuss.  “You’re getting a Kindle for Christmas and I’m getting my house back.”  That was it.  I started boxing up my books that same day to give to family, friends and Good Will.

 I have loved every minute of my Kindle.  I feel the need to always have my mind occupied so I bring my Kindle everywhere I go.  I use my Kindle the most at work since my job has a lot of down time though I’m required to be there for the entirety of my twelve-hour shift.  I have also had a lot of explaining to do as far as my Kindle was concerned.  My boss was the first person to ask what it was I was doing as I stared lovingly into the screen of my little white rectangle.  As I started to explain what I had and the amazingness of what I held in my hands, his eyes glazed over and just assumed I wasted a colossal amount of money on a device that held one book even though I went through all the features and amazingnesses of my Kindle.  Over the years I have explained my Kindle to probably over a hundred people and I find that I still don’t mind going through my little spiel.  I could very well be a spokes model for Amazon.  These days I’m actually surprised when someone hasn’t heard of the Kindle since it’s been as common to me as a can opener for the past two years.  A few weeks ago I almost used my Kindle as a weapon when someone got all excited over it because they thought they were in the presence of an iPad.

 I have passed my love of reading on to my daughter and so I feel like an e-book device is the logical choice for a Christmas gift this year.  Barnes and Noble has the Nook which has some features that I find are better than the Kindle.  One of the things that I like about the Nook is that a gift card can be plugged into the account and that will be used first instead of a credit card.  Maybe that Kindle has that feature too, but I’ve never been able to talk to anyone about the Kindle face to face like I can the Nook and I’ve never had the need to use a gift card from Amazon since I’ve never gotten one as a gift and I’m the one that pays the credit card bill.  Another feature of the Nook that I appreciate is the fact that it is formatted to hold different types of files which enables the Nook user to download many more free books that I can on my Kindle.  Granted I have the first generation Kindle and I know that the other generations are far more superior to what I’ve got.  Another feature that I love about the Nook is that you can share books with other people who have a Nook.  One of my daughter’s friends just got a Nook for her birthday and one of the guys that I work with has a daughter about my daughter’s age who is also getting a Nook for Christmas.  That gives my daughter at least two people to share and swap books with, which I see as saving a fortune.  The Nook also has a parental controls that will help me keep my daughter from buying The Joy of Sex or other books that I feel are above her for the time being.  I’ve raved about books within her earshot that I’ve read in the past like The Art of Racing in the Rain and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Because I spoke so highly of them, my daughter wanted to read them too but I wouldn’t hand over my Kindle to her because of sexually suggestive parts.  I can prevent her from downloading these types of books onto her Nook.

 Up until last week, I was positively convinced I knew what she would be getting for Christmas.  And then, I heard about something on the radio.  The Nook Color.  PC World describes the Nook Color as being the Cadillac of ereaders and upon my own personal research; I have to agree with them.  I thought that I would never want another reading device as long as I lived, or as long as my Kindle lived, which ever came first.  This thing seems amazing.  Magazines will finally look like magazines, minus the paper of course.  I never bothered to subscribe to any of the periodicals on my Kindle because of how grainy and colorless they were.  Now this opens up a whole new reading world for me, I mean for my daughter.  The day after the broadcast I went to the Nook counter at Barnes and Noble to ask a ton of questions about this upcoming device.  After listening and asking my many questions, which even I assumed were asked for my daughter’s reading pleasure, I soon realized I was asking questions that I wanted to know for myself.  Uh-oh.  I was drooling.  Here I was an ardent Kindle fan and felt like I was almost quaking with desire for my best inanimate friend’s nemesis, or at least biggest competitor.

 The Nook Color has a seven-inch screen, which is bigger than my Kindle’s.  It has a touch screen and a built in speaker so you can stream Pandora radio.  It comes with three games which are suduko, chess and crossword puzzles.  It runs on an Android operating system that will have available updates as they come out, which will only improve the device over time.  The screen is back-lit but will still be readable in the sun.  The two downfalls to the Nook Color over the Kindle that I have are the fact that the Nook Color will only have Wi-Fi as opposed to having a 3G connection capability as well, and the battery life is only good for eight hours opposed to the thirty days that I’m used to with my Kindle.  Despite the “bad” qualities, my husband pre-ordered two, one for me and one for my daughter.  I couldn’t stop him.  I didn’t want to stop him.  Even though I’m not completely sold on the Nook Color for myself, I am going to get one for my daughter.

 The Nook Colors will be in the store November 19^th and I have to decide if that’s the route that I want to go.  I feel like I’m cheating on my Kindle even considering going to a different device.  I seriously feel guilty for even considering something else, but I am still considering it because the Nook Color is a perfect marriage between my two passions, reading and technology.  Or I could just use the old expression of “the more the merrier” and just get the Nook Color.  But if I keep on getting the latest and greatest reading devices, won’t my husband and I be sharing a twin bed with an electronic bookshelf on the side?  I’m willing to take my chances.