So I’ve finally done it. I’ve bought a Kindle Touch and “joined the dark side,” as my cousin put it in a comment on my Facebook timeline when I updated my status, announcing the purchase. Kind of an impulse buy, I waited until after the holidays to make sure no one had gotten one for me, then on a trip to Target, I decided to make the purchase, not wanting to pay for shipping and wait for it to arrive through the mail. And though the purchase hasn’t instigated as much excitement in me as my fiance thought it should, I’m liking it more and more as I use it.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m kind of frugal. I’ve made the tentative plan to only purchase eBooks with gifted Amazon certificates or those that I earn by doing surveys and earning points on MyPoints.com. Also, the first thing I did when connecting to the Amazon store was search for the free books in the public domain. The Jungle Book, Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace–I think this will be a great for me to get started reading some of the classics I’ve always told myself I should. Another benefit, some of the titles for my other blog, What Would Alfred Read, are in the public domain, which will make it so much easier to track them down.

Then there is the prospect of being able to download free eBooks provided by the State Library of Kansas at some unspecified future date. I had initially debated buying the Kindle, because at this point, 3M, the vendor of eBooks the State Library is now working with, doesn’t currently have eBooks that are Kindle compatible. However, as the Kansas EZ Library’s website explains, “they are working on it.” I figure by the time I get through the classics and some of the titles that I purchase with a gift card my fiance gave to me, they might have compatible titles. If not, as a resident of Northeast Kansas, I can always apply for a library card at the Topeka and Shawnee County Library, who’s signed their own contract with Overdrive, another eBook provider that does have Kindle compatible titles.

So where am I going to begin? Well, for now, I’m actually going to be trying to finish the physical copy of Haruki Murakami’s newest tome, 1Q84, within the next two weeks. I just got it back after having to turn it in unfinished because of the 2 week check out period (and I’m much too frugal to pay the $14.99 for the Kindle version…). Then we’ll see!