Black Friday shopping. Holiday shopping in general. Insanity.
I personally think all three terms should be linked hand-in-hand. This year, instead of going nuts, go digital! Save a tree – read an e-book. E-book readers are now widely available for under $100, and make the perfect gift for family and kids. And now with so many people carrying iPhones, Androids, and other smart phones, and with iPads and other tablets, you don’t even need an e-reader. You can read on the go, anywhere, with mobile apps from Kindle, nook, and others.
Give the gift of reading. Most larger publishers have gift certificates available that you can gift to the reader in your life. (Or when family asks you what you want, give them the urls to your favorite online book retailers!)
For those few people who still balk at e-readers, remember it’s the words, not the medium, that makes a “book.” E-readers have benefits such as flexible font, so if you have older eyes like me, you don’t have to squint to read. You can carry waaaay more e-books on a small, lightweight device than you can dead-tree books. And e-books are ecologically more sound, saving precious natural resources from unnecessary destruction.
Best of all, you can shop in your PJs and never leave the house, not have to fight crazy shoppers, not have to loose sleep. You can stay home, eat your leftovers, snug and happy and best of all, finish your holiday shopping in minutes instead of weeks.
So save a tree – read an e-book!
I completely agree with you! I bought my first ereader 2 years ago and haven’t purchased a paper book since. Love the ability to carry my entire library with me wherever I go, having multiple fonts, having a dictionary available at the touch of a button and so on. Plus, buying books is as easy as going to a Wi-Fi site or logging on from home. A great gift for readers!
Pat – I know, me too! I only buy books in “dead tree” format if they’re a reference book I know I’ll use a lot and want to have in front of me, especially if it’s got a lot of graphics, or I need to make notes in it that I can easily read. But as far as fiction, I go for e-books.