e-reading

i have been a big reader my whole life. i love books. and the physicality of books. the smell of new and old. i've illustrated children's books. i've worked in bookstores and libraries. in my marriage and raising my children we had over a thousand books on floor to ceiling shelves. when i walked away, i left almost all my books and haven't been a collector since. only a few books for visual research. i give away novels i have read. or i borrow them. living in such a small community with only a little chain bookstore i don't buy many books. and although i appreciate the public library, i don't like to wait my turn for a new publication.
for all these reasons, i decided to buy an e-reader this past december. i tried one out while i was in toronto (knowing how important it would be to hold one before i committed). it takes getting used to. waiting for it to turn on. clicking the pages to move forward. although it tells me how much of a book i have read (you have read 37% of this book) it's not like seeing the bookmark and knowing how much more to go. but. i love it's lightness and that i can read on my side at night. i love that books cost only around $10.00 to purchase and download and that i can have them immediately. i can take it down to the cabin and plan to take it to cuba - much easier than a pile of books. yesterday i purchased the next book that our book club will be reading - peter carey's "parrot & olivier in america" . i'll have to get back into making notes on a seperate piece of paper (as i did as a student researching an essay with library books). no more sticky notes. i still love books. but it doesn't have to be either-or