I love lists like the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, it is a list I've perused before and one on which includes many titles I've read. I stumbled across it again a few days ago and decided I'd make it a goal to read everything on the list I haven't already read. Imagine my surprise when I discovered I've only read 37 of the 100 books. I plan on reading the remaining 63 over the next three years, one does not live by classic literature alone.
I usually get through 40 or 50 books a year. I'm doing a little better this year, and will probably finish with 70 or 80. The nice thing about starting this project now is the Kindle I recently received as a gift. Many of the books are in the public domain and available for free from sites like Feedbooks, Manybooks, and Project Gutenburg
Think of the money I'll save, and maybe it is good for the environment as well. No trees are cut down to produce the books, no fuel is burned transporting them across the country on airplanes and in trucks. I may be overlooking something here, but it seems on balance to be a good thing. I could just check them out of the library of course, but even there it means a trip in the car and more fuel used.
And talk about instant gratification, I can decide on a book and in less than a minute it is available to read. My Kindle is already filling up with books I intend to read, but unlike the many books I've purchased intending to read they are not sitting on bookshelves, sometimes double stacked, on the Kindle the books don't require any more physical space. I was concerned when I got the Kindle that I wouldn't like reading on it but I do.
There are rumors about that the Kindle is really starting to take off sales predicted by some to be 180,000 this year may according to the same prognosticators reach 360,000. The current estimate of Kindles in the wild is 240,000. I've been amused by some of the naysaying I've been reading. One fellow doesn't believe there are that many because, although he lives in a city of six million, has never seen one in the wild, another, a literary blogger points to the lack of Kindle sales through her Amazon link. It seems to me that they simply are having trouble understanding what a small number a couple of hundred thousand is in a nation of over 300 million.
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