I try to use my Kindle Paperwhite like it is the book I am currently reading. It has a black cover and is about the size of a small book. It contains about 300 books and it is easy to add books to it. I can tell my computer to send a book to it from my archives or a new one from Amazon. I can shop for a book from the Kindle and buy it, too. As soon as I purchase, the book comes to the Paperwhite wirelessly.
I mentioned to my friend the trouble I had, knowing that many other books were just a tap from the one I was reading. Just as channel hopping can be a temptation on a television set, book hopping is fast and easy on a Kindle. I have pretty well learned to concentrate on one good book at a time and not switch all the time. This is, after all, an age of American distractions - wait, is that my cellphone? - so improving concentration pays off in several settings.
Books loaded into the Kindle are electronic files inside it and are readable without any sort of connection or signal. Since they are document files, they can be represented on the screen in 10 different fonts and 8 different letter sizes. The tiniest font is still readable without outside magnification but I have gotten so that I read with the 2nd largest font most of the time. At times, it is convenient to switch to a tiny font when I am trying to get an entire passage on one page to copy for a note or to send to a friend or to Twitter. Books can be easily moved back off the Kindle into the archives if that is desired. "Collections" (folders) of next to be read, already read, etc. can be created, accessed or deleted.
It is easy to look at the book on my computer or my iPad if I want. The choices and options I have on one device are not identical to what is available on another. Just as the cloud for Microsoft is not identical to the cloud for Google or Apple, the Amazon reading differs a bit from one device to another.
Even though I believe in concentrating on one book, I can decide that I have the message, especially in non-fiction. I keep the excuse at the ready that I only have a declining number of days and should not waste them on inferior or repetitious reading. There are books that I keep on with, right to the end, but they have to be worth it. That is not easy in today's market of excellent books in a steady torrent.
