Kindling a love for e-reading

I had an Android Tablet thingy for my birthday back in August. I wanted it primarily as an e-reader. It came preloaded with Aldiko and Google Books and I downloaded the king of e-readers, Kindle. One of the reasons why I wanted an e-reader was space. My study is packed with far too many books. Some shelves are double-stacked and others have books lying horizontally on top of rows of vertical volumes. Another reason is cost. While some e-books are not much cheaper than their paper equivalents, many titles are available  at bargain basement prices.

From Kindle I have bought: In Christ Alone, by Sinclair Ferguson for £0.99, Spurgeon's complete Treasury of David for £2.01, Expository Thoughts by J. C. Ryle was £1.98, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin, was only £0.49. The Fullness of Christ by John Preston was free. Aldiko has a free range (sorry if that sounds a bit like eggs) called 'Great Books of the Western World'. I downloaded Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. The witty author anticipates and critiques postmodernism a hundred years ahead of time, "A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed." I also got The Travels of True Godliness  by Benjamin Keach and Grace and Glory by Geerhardus Vos from Aldiko for free - and Melville's Moby Dick. "Call me Ishmael." Well, please don't.

I resisted getting an e-reader for some time partly because they are a bit pricey. You have to be prepared to shell out on the kit before making savings on e-books. But also because I like the traditional book as physical object. You can't beat the look and feel of a decent quality hardback. I wouldn't think of parting with Bavinck's handsome volumes of Reformed Dogmatics for an electronic version. No way. I was also a bit concerned that I might be tempted to "skim read" e-books, a little bit like you are probably skim reading this post. Books have a weight and substance to them that demands serious attention. E-stuff doesn't have that. But so far that hasn't happened. I'm currently 19 chapters into In Christ Alone and have found it as absorbing as reading Ferguson in regular book-form.

Of course there are drawbacks. Books don't need recharging or give off screen-glare in the sunshine, or crash mid-chapter. But you can't listen to your music collection via Amazon Cloud Player on a book, or browse the web and the like. Besides, carrying all the titles mentioned above around with me would be a bit heavy going. With Kindle I can quickly access them all on my PC, Tablet and Phone. The app even bookmarks the last page I read on my PC, say, so I can pick up where I left off using any device. Cool eh? So, I won't be abandoning good old fashioned books just yet, but a love for e-reading has definitely been Kindled.