Two-Reader Household

Hubby and I are both die-hard bibliophiles, and our house has always been full of books. In fact, it's so full of books that was one of the reasons I decided to buy an e-reader - less storage space required.

I love my Sony e-reader and after Hubby saw me happy with it he decided he wanted an e-reader, too. Given the fact that many e-books are only available in one format, we decided, rather than get a second Sony, to get him a Kindle - figuring that we'd be increasing the chances of us being able to get hold of desired e-books in a format we could read.

So we are now a two e-reader household, and Hubby has enthusiastically embraced e-book technology. On our recent holiday we took along both e-readers, and we spent many hours relaxing by the pool, him with his nose in the Kindle and me with mine in the Sony.

Having compared the two, I think aesthetically I still prefer my pocket Sony, which is neater and more compact. But the Kindle has its advantages, too. There are now Sony e-readers that will allow one to edit documents, but my particular brand will not. The Kindle will, and it's also wifi compatible, which the Sony is not.

Buying e-books on the Sony is fairly straightforward. You have to download the reader library software onto your PC. When you buy an e-book in EPUB format, it will download into your reader library. You then plug the e-reader into the PC, and drag and drop the relevant EPUB files from the library onto your device. Unplug the device, and your new e-books appear on your e-reader.

The Kindle's even easier, though. When you buy a Kindle from Amazon, it automatically links itself to your Amazon account. Buying an e-book for your Kindle, after that, is literally a case of one click. Browse the available Kindle books on Amazon. When you find one you want to buy, you click the 'buy now' button. And that's it. The next time you switch on your Kindle, your new e-books will automatically download. You don't even have to worry about payment details, as they are already stored in your Amazon account (which makes buying Kindle e-books potentially very expensive, because it's far too easy to lose track of how much money you've spent).

Both Hubby and I still buy paper books, but I find myself buying ever more e-books. So many books, so little time.

There's still a fear out there in the publishing world that e-books will make paper books obsolete. I still believe that won't happen, but maybe I'm being optimistic. A few years ago Hubby didn't believe he'd ever stop reading newspapers - he used to read one every morning on the daily commute. But now he doesn't read newspapers at all. At some point over the last couple of years he changed to getting all of his news online, read with a cup of coffee at his desk before he starts work in the morning.

If e-books take over from paper completely it will be a shame. In the meantime my paper TBR pile continues to grow - but the Sony TBR pile grows even faster.

As an extra complication, I now have an addition 'TBR pile'on the Kindle. I just have to prise it away from Hubby first...