book-noun- a printed or written literary work. kindle-verb- to stir up , to be become illuminted

I have seen the future of books my friends, and it is the Kindle!

I must admit I was majorly skeptical about the "Kindle" from Amazon when I first heard about it. I am an avid reader and I generally turn my nose up at most of the e-reader gadgets that I have come across. Why mess with the book? I mean c'mon don't we have enough gizmos and gadgets in our life already? But after reading many good things about the Kindle, I got excited.

See the thing is, I’m usually reading 2 or 3 books at once, and I think I’m currently halfway through all of them, so when I travel, it’s hard to know what kind of mood I’ll be in and I wind up lugging all of them. And they’re heavy! A gadget like the Kindle is a godsend for someone like me. To my utter amazement and joy I got one for my very own for my birthday this past week. (Ask me how old I am and I will rip your tongue out!)

Back to the review shall we? Clears Throat. Here’s a brief rundown of my thoughts on it so far:

1.)It’s not ugly or as clunky as I thought it would be.Photographs of it make it look like some sorta medical device or something , but in person, it’s actually quite small, light, and clean looking. It's all white (except for the screen), which is supposed to help make the device “disappear” so that the reader doesn't get distracted by anything other than the words on the screen.

SideNote: It seems to me like it was really meant to remind you of the iPod. The Kindle is essentially an iPod for books. In fact, it is so neat looking that the only drawback to it is that it was literally impossible for me to read 2 pages in public without someone commenting on it!

2.)The display is gorgeous. It's comfortableto hold.How comfortable? Very comfortable it's nice and light; it just feels nice in your hand, The downside is that it's very easy to hit the Next Page button accidentally. Although....read on.

3.)The Next Page buttons on both sides make it really comfortable to read-especially in bed (one of my very favorite things to do.) No matter which hand you are holding the Kindle in, you can easily turn the page. However, I must say that the large buttons on both sides of the Kindle mean that it's sometimes hard to hold it and not press a button- at times I would be walking around with the Kindle in my hand, and I was inadvertenly flipping a whole bunch of pages on the way and losing my place.

SideNote:I would recommend placing a bookmark where ever and whenever you need to stop reading. Bookmarks?Yup, just like in real books, you can leave bookmarks where you left off so you can find your way back. The leather case that comes with it is also good for protecting and carrying it around without the risk of hitting buttons.

4.)The scroll thing is very cool and fun to use. I don't think I will ever understand the magic technology behind the shiny mercury-like LCD bar thingy on the right. But it is sooo pretty I sometimes do stuff just to watch it jump around!

5.)The EVDO works like magic. Buying books with just a click, no software required,using what's called the "whispernet" and having it downloaded into your Kindle within 12 seconds or so is a killer feature here. It's just so perfect!

6.)The battery is pretty powerful and lasted about 4 full days of regular use, and best of all charging it is super quick- juice it for 15 or 20 minutes and it's good to go for a while.

7.)Now about the web browser. To be honest with you I never used the web browser. I surf the web a-plenty in my everyday life, I'm just not thinking about dot coms.while I'm reading.

8.)The e-Ink screen really nails what it tries to do, which is to duplicate the experience of reading on paper. Even though it does lose some brownie points with me because the screen isn't back-lit for night-time reading and it doesn't do color.

9.)Availabilty. Unfortunately is limited to Amazon.com (of course) at least for now. It might be awhile though before you are able to go out and buy it in a store. I highly doubt Barnes & Noble is begging to sell it!

10.)Good for the environment. The "green benefits" are obvious -save a tree, less waste. Blah, blah,blah. sorry about the green diversion. Back to books and reading, shall we?

11.) I just wish the selection was better, there’s an endless amount of great stuff in the Kindle store (mostly best sellers) but not everything. But that will probably change in time as it becomes more popular. I know it will now be something I will always have in my travel duffle bag, going everywhere I go, but it looks like I’ll still be forced to lug around some dead trees every once in awhile.

If you're a casual or infrequent reader, I'm not sure this is a device or service for you. But for the avid reader, particularly you mobile ones, don't wait. Get one now.

Bottom line: I love the device! Yeah, I know $399 is expensive, but that will probably come down soon enough, but look at it this way, the average book price is only $9.99 so that takes the sting off.