I love to read. It’s one of my favorite things!…

…*Recalls her attention back to reality from where it had wandered into books*.

There came a time, however, when suddenly I couldn’t read. I could not focus on books, even a favorite novel I had read half a dozen times before. I would pick on one, and slowly realize I had read the first paragraph three times in a row without registering anything. So I would set it aside, and grab another one. After a frustrating day of tossing books aside, my room would have them everywhere. And I would not have gotten past the first few chapters of any of them. Argh! I mean, what else are your supposed to do, laying in bed day after day? You can only watch movies for so long…. that is, if you can focus on them at all in the first place. It was a very frustrating.

I will revisit what in the world you are supposed to do in bed all day another time, but for now, let’s move on the something I do have ideas for. 🙂

When we moved from our moldy house, all the books had to go. There was no way that they would be safe, or that the mold would ever come out of the books. I’m fairly certain we even found mold visibly growing on some of them. Regardless, we couldn’t keep them. It was like parting from old friends! I had enjoyed the books, learned from them, and written all through them. I decided that instead of selling them (the ones without mold growing visibly on them), to give mine to all my friends I was moving away from. 🙂 That made it a little better.

But my Bible! That was the worst. It was near the end of a month spent away from my family, the evening after the last afternoon I would see all of my friends together, when I handed it over to be gotten rid of. I cried.

I borrowed a Bible from the family I was staying with until we left, and then after that I used a Bible app on a phone.

But what to do about replacing them? A few weeks later, once we had left, my Grandma got us Kindles, which could only be God’s provision. If we had gotten new, real Bibles, or any other books, we would have had to get rid of them since it took us a couple of moves to find safe place.

Once we were in that safe place, our current house, we were able to clean our Kindles (replacing the cases). The thing is, Kindles have been the best answer, we’ve found. Used, real books risk mold, and new books are just too chemically! (Especially Bibles 🙁 ) I never thought I could use a Kindle… real books were just so much better, in my mind. I have learned to enjoy them, though. They do, after all, have many benefits! 😉 .

Pros:

• It is convenient to have all your books with you easily in one hand, purse, or pocket. (Yes, pocket!)
• Some books are significantly cheaper (or free!) on Kindle than real books.
• If multiple members of the family have Kindles on them same Amazon account, they can read the same books at the same time.
• Some books only come on Kindle.
• You can read really long documents you or others have written on it (Nice, especially if printing stuff is bad for you chemically).
• They do come without glare, rather than phones or computers.
• You can get ebooks at the library just like normal books, you don’t even have to go to the library, and as long as you are connected to wifi, you won’t ever need to pay late fees.

Cons:

• It is not as convenient to try to flip from section to section.
• You can’t see how big of a book it is as easily.
• You can’t admire the covers of books in color.
• It has to be charged, and always looses battery when you are at a cliff hanger 😉 (though the battery lasts a long time).
• You have to be connected to wifi to get a new book.

So yes, I would say Kindles are your best option. However, I do still stand by this:

Another option, if you can’t have ‘real’ books, is audio books, good apps are Audible and Librivox. I know there are some other great ones, feel free to comment about some that you like! Or how about this? Comment with your favorite book! 🙂 Yes, I know that’s a impossible question 😉

*Note: Kindle vs Book meme from pinterest.