Two years ago, my big Christmas gift was a Kindle. I still think paper books are great. They smell good and have pretty covers and all. But my Kindle is amazing. I don’t have room to store loads of books. Books are heavy to pack or travel with. And the ease of downloading a book from the comfort of my couch in 60 seconds is pretty freaking awesome (especially when you finish a cliffhanger first book in a series and want to immediately start reading the next one).
I wish I’d started using Goodreads before I bought my Kindle, because it has a nifty feature that lets you keep track of how many books you’ve read in a single year. (For 2011, I read 63 books!) I wish I could see the difference in how many books I read post-Kindle versus pre-Kindle. I am absolutely confident I read more now than I used to. I carry my Kindle everywhere and read everywhere. You’d be amazed at how often you find yourself waiting around and can get in 10-20 minutes of reading time.
So when Amazon announced a whole new line of Kindles before the holiday season… I was very tempted to upgrade. And after reading reviews and doing my research, I asked my parents for the new Kindle Touch as my big Christmas gift this year. (I did not get the Kindle Fire, which is more like a tablet because I read soooooo much and my eyes would feel the strain of a backlit screen. E-ink is more eye-friendly if you’re doing a lot of reading.)
I am in love with my new Kindle Touch.
It is sleeker, smoother, and smaller than my old Kindle. The touch screen makes navigation and note-taking so much easier. I used to have to navigate a page using a little nubby joystick thing which was slow and imprecise. The touch screen replaces this and makes interacting with the page (scrolling, highlighting, note-taking) so much simpler. I have yet to encounter any glitches (and I’ve been playing with it quite a bit!). It is a glorious, beautiful device. Plus the new screensavers are super pretty!
No more creepy Emily Dickinson!
Hello pretty close-up shots of typewriters!
If you’ve been thinking about buying an e-reader, do it. Best thing I ever did.
Wordy Hughes 
I've been toying with this for a while now. I feel blasphemous admitting how much I want one, but I do—for all of the reasons you listed! Gah. I think this might have to be a birthday present to myself this year.
Hillary-I really think you'd love it.Two cost bonuses: you can now get library books on Kindle and Kindle books are cheaper than real books (and I've found Kindle are often cheaper than Nook too!)