So, my lovely boyfriend bought me a Kindle for my birthday.

Previously I had remained rather neutral on the subject of e-readers. I’ve always been such a “paper” book person, you see; I work for a company that make beautiful hardback editions of classic books, I’ve a degree in illustration, and I studied bookbinding at art college. Most telling of all, there are just piles and piles of the things at home, so many that we sort of exist in a fort made of paper and text. I like the smell of them, the physical weight of a paperback or a hardback. In this, I thought, I would remain a luddite. Touch screen phones and wi-fi, yes, but e-readers- probably not.

It took me approximately 30 seconds to fall in love with the Kindle.

It is devilishly cute, for a start. The screen looks just like a page, not an electronic screen, and it is not remotely aren’t-I-trendy-and-flash like some electronic devices I could name. It’s easy to use and does everything it’s supposed to. It brings up pictures of fish and birds and Jules Verne if I leave it alone for a little while. But the thing that sold me on it, the thing that made me cling to it like a monkey with a chocolate dipped banana, the thing that means it hasn’t been out of my sight since the 19th is- I can now carry all the books I’m reading with me, all of the time.

This is significant. This is epic.

Because I’m one of those people who tends to be reading more than one book at a time. And everyday, when I leave for work, I have to look at each book in turn and decide which one I will cram into my handbag. This is never an easy decision for me; it’s rather like deciding which of your children to take to Disneyland, and which to send to the workhouse to eat gruel.

But now you can all come! Now we can all go on It’s a Small World and eat ice-cream and prance and sing and cavort with the sinister costumed things!

Um. Anyway, there is that, and the tremendous power of thinking “You know, I’ve never gotten around to reading Stephen King’s The Long Walk…” and hey, by the end of that sentence there it is, sitting on my Kindle waiting for me to read (it was brilliant, by the way, some of the best King I’ve read in years and years). There are dangers, obviously; for a book addict this is rather like being in a giant shop full of book-shaped cakes and the baker saying “They’re free! All free! But careful you don’t ruin your dinner.”

All in all, I think you can consider me converted. No doubt I’ll still continue to buy good ol’ paper books too, but the Kindle is here to stay. Now, on with The Anubis Gates!