My room is mostly a neatly organized mess. Things are where they are supposed to be. Papers are stacked and filed away. I have folders of magazine articles and newspaper clippings. They’re stuffedto the brim, their contents untouched for years.

I have a lot of useless paper in my room. The vast majority of it is in the form of books. I have a somewhat extensive library of books, and it takes up a significant amount of space in my room. It also easily contributes to the clutter I have.

I thought to myself, why not get a Kindle? One thing I realized that I wanted to change about my lifestyle was to increase my reading. I was on a date and found myself saying, “I’m afraid I don’t really read much. I’d like to though, I really would.” Of course, this probably didn’t help me appear to be the intelligent fellow that I am, but then again, my attention span has been getting shorter and shorter over the years. And I’m sure that TV was rotting my brain: in the last couple of months, I’ve watched more TV shows than movies, and I know it’s because I often wasn’t in the mood to be sitting around for two hours worth of emotional investment.Anyway, I ended up getting my Kindle 2 on Friday. And boy was I excited! I opened up the packaging, and out wafted the wonderful smell of electronics fresh off the assembly line. I tenderly took the Kindle out of the black plastic shell and held it like a newborn baby. I looked upon t with a sense of wonderment and awe, my mind wandering to what it would be like to spend time with it in the future.I was touched to see that my Kindle already knew who I was upon turning the device on. It even had the samples I “ordered” through the online Kindle Store on the computer. I spent a few moments skimming the manual and the letter from Jeff Bezos. After about fifteen minutes of getting acquainted with my newbaby,I saw a couple of the books on the homescreen, books I had ordered on the computer.

And the rest is history. I finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers just last night. I’ve been reading rather voraciously, and have intentions of continuing to do so. I’ve got a couple of books about the NYPD, The Art of War, the Tao Te Ching, and the Sherlock Holmes Complete Collection. I am particularly looking forward to the Sherlock Holmes.

So to me, the reading experience is amazing on the Kindle. The E-Ink is awesome: I have never seen anything like it, and I love it. It’s just quite a sight to behold. The E-Ink makes it seem as though it was really printed. Upon close inspection, you might think that it was like one of those sheets of plastic overlays with print on it. The screen is relatively matte, though I noticed that in direct overhead light, you may have trouble reading.

In terms of handling, it’s been beautiful so far. The buttons are tight and don’t jangle around. I wouldn’t really ever want to type on the keyboard, but it suffices for what it’s tasked to do. Being superbly thin, even the leather cover that thickens up the whole package doesn’t deter me from dropping this into my bag.

I find myself trying to find “excuses” to read now. Just a few days ago, if I had three hours of free time, I would be playing some kind of computer game or watching some TV shows or a movie. Now, I browse my movie library for something I’ve already watched just so I can have some kind of background noise while I read.

Now, as for the whole PDF fiasco, I won’t go there…that’s something I’ve tinkered with and am not happy with. But as a self-contained device, the Kindle is wonderful device. I highly recommend it for anyone who’s a fan of reading. Really, I think this thing can do with books what Pandora does for the exploration of music.