I love e-books for all the usual reasons: they are cheap, I can put them on my PDA and bump up the font so I can read in bed without my contacts, I can get them at any time day or night whether or not the library or the bookstore is open, and oh yes, they are cheap. Did I mention cheap?
I've been reading e-books for years and it was a big priority to me that my own mysteries come out in electronic format as well as paper. I really believe it is an option whose time has come.
Notice I said option. E-books are no reason for me to stop listening to audio books on my MP3 player as I run in the mornings (Why else get up at 5:45 in the cold and DARK, if not because I can't wait to hear what is going to happen next in that Mariah Stewart book?) E-books are no reason for me to stop getting paper books at the bookstore or at the library to read on the loveseat at night. But I do love having an e-book on that backlit PDA waiting for me to climb into bed at night. I have hard contacts which are only suppposed to be in for 11 or 12 hours a day. (Yes, Dr. Brooks, I do listen! I seriously do NOT sleep in the darn things.) And I can't read with glasses--they just don't correct my vision enough. So that is some serious reading time I'm missing without that e-book.
Not to mention the fact that the backlight on the PDA makes it possible for me to read far into the night without disturbing my husband. So I've been an e-book fan for years. I even bought my husband a Sony e-reader for his birthday and converted him. But now Oprah is jumping on the bandwagon. She is recommending the Kindle. And I'm wondering--would you read an e-book because she does?
Frankly, it always surprises me that many people have a PDA stashed somewhere and haven't gotten the free software at Mobipocket that they can use to give e-books a try. No need to get a new and expensive gadget. Are you curious? Did Oprah make you wonder? Am I the only one who loves to read in bed at night?