Books and eBooks

There are many reasons I love eBooks. One of the biggest of those is that during my recent move, I didn't lose a single one of them. Neither did they end up stored in a damp shed, curling up at the edges. Nope, they stayed firmly on my device, and as anyone who knows me well will be aware, the first things set up in any new home are computers, internet and gadgets. Without these the house is not a home.

The recent addition to the devices, an eeePad (not an iPad, dear me no!) running Android, has access to a slew of applications (free and otherwise), and so within the first week or two I found Android versions of a few of my favourite apps, including one for FBReader, an ebook reader I rather like. I won't go into the other apps I bought, except to recommend Cut The Rope!

But one afternoon, sitting and drinking tea with my mum, she mentioned to me a book I might enjoy, Broadmoor Revealed, an historic account of the famous mental hospital. Since Broadmoor is rather close (you can hear the alarm tests from where we live, every Monday morning), I did, indeed, think it a book worth my time, and on finding that it was free, I hastened to download the Kindle reader app, and then the book itself. The book arrived in double quick time - after all, it's delivered wirelessly, I don't have to wait for the post, and I set about reading it.

And then I got thinking - I wonder what other books may be available for free. Which is a slippery slope if ever there was one! I was hooked. I went through their Top 100 free books, many of which I already own, being such items as Sherlock Holmes books, or Jane Austen books. But there were enough modern ones to keep me interested. More were downloaded.

At which point it all starts to turn pearshaped.

I started to look at the other books. You know, the ones which aren't free. Let's just say that it's waaaay too easy to purchase books now. One click, and it's in my library. ONE CLICK!!!

Now we come to the dilemma.

I want to purchase a book about the VLE I'm testing (that's Virtual Learning Environment), and the paper copy is priced at £24, while the Kindle version is priced at £14! That's a pretty big discount. But if I buy the book, it's attached solely to my device. I can't leave it with the school when I go.

And the question of the day - should I buy it and expense it, knowing I'll be keeping it if I ever leave? After all, I'll be saving them £10, and anyway, it'll be obsolete before long, won't it?