As some of you know, I am spending the school year teaching ESL in France. This sounds all exciting, and it is, but with the crackdown on checked bags and my needing to use several different venues of public transportation, I'm having to prioritize my belongings on what to bring. I don't really care about fitting enough clothes, and I don't plan on bringing any beauty products or gadgets. What I am agonizing over is how many books I can bring. There's french dictionaries obviously, but what about my lazy days of reading in cafes? Books get heavy very quickly--especially when I plan to read Dostoevsky and Proust. And it's absurd, of all the things I'm nervous about with moving to France, it's what books I can take.
So, I have been researching kindles since I can cover many of my classics for free and with one lightweight contraption. The main drawback to that is that the more gadgets I have with my space cadet consciousness while wandering around Europe, the more likely it is that I'll have something stolen. I have two months after my job ends to travel around Europe (by myself, mind you) with little money. My kindle will be pretty great to keep up my reading, but if I lose it then I have nothing to read. It's about as bad as someone not only stealing your camera, but stealing your camera with sentimental pictures.
What say all of you? Should I invest in a kindle so I can keep up my reading while wandering, or should I simply utilize the libraries of France?
If you did not invest in the Kindle, would you be keeping the money that you would spend on the eReader to spend at your leisure in Europe? If yes, I would save the money, take as many books as you can to France, and look for the others in French libraries...or perhaps re-buy them, if necessary. It would be cheaper than buying an eReader, I would guess.
ReplyDeleteBooks in France are EXPENSIVE, plus toting them is heavy. I may be wrong but I think if you lost your kindle you could still have access to your purchases on a new kindle or computer.Trust me, a Kindle weighs less than Proust!
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