The Unkindled soul....

As a book lover , as an ardent reader I had never thought that I shall be going for a ‘Kindle’ ever because like many of us I too love to feel the fresh, crisp pages, the fragrance of a new book and the excitement of turning pages and adding that one more book to the ‘collection’. 

Then came Kindle and though I was not very convinced with the idea of reading from an electronic device , I liked the concept of inbuilt dictionary and putting up the favourite lines directly on to the social media platforms etc. of the Kindle,  in short the features caught me and I wanted to get one for my daughter who is an equally avid reader , I thought the inbuilt dictionary would be of great help to her because many a times she comes running to me to know the meaning of a word or a phrase.

 

 On her 14th birthday we decided to gift a Kindle to her, and she was happy to the core and more than her I was also secretly happy because I decided to grab it whenever she would be busy with her school assignments and exams. Soon I started to get familiar with the world of Kindle and one fine morning I stumbled upon ‘Kindle Unlimited’, it elated me so much, I was ecstatic that by paying a certain amount for the entire year I shall be able to read unlimited and across various genres and all those books which I always wanted to read one day but could not lay my hands on yet.  So I did not spend much time thinking of the cons, as an avid reader all I could see was that I had unlimited access to soooo many books, so I just made the payment and grabbed the kindle excitedly.

 

There came the twist in the story, the books which are available on 'Kindle unlimited' are definitely a whole lot but out of this all those calssics, all those masterpieces etc. has been excluded and some more and some more has been excluded, any good author with popular best selling books under his/ her belt are hard to find in 'Kindle unlimited' , if he or she has written 10 books you shall be lucky to get hold of hardly one or two… such a huge disappointment and it turns out to be  embarrassing  as well sometimes as the maximum books on ‘Kindle unlimited’ belongs to the ‘erotica’ and ‘raunchy’ category…. Phew… it is a matter of concern that my daughter also surfs through these to find an ‘Emma’ or a ‘Pride and prejudice’, though I must mention that Kindle does provide controls to accessing such books.

Since I have already spent an amount for the entire year I am not so interested in buying those books which I always wanted to read and which are available on Kindle for a price (though reduced price) . It has become a big dampener that ‘Kindle Unlimited’ is not what it looks like or spoken about by Amazon on the outside.  At the cost of sounding like someone who belongs to the old school of thought, after this episode I am all the more wary of reading from an electronic device, and trusting the e-commerce Companies and their advertising tactics.

I would rather spend some money and buy the book of my choice from a shop which will let me feel the book, its cover, its fresh, crisp pages and get all excited at the prospect of reaching home and start reading it right away. Even an old book bought from a pavement provides a feel of nostalgia and old dewy fragrance and  at least you are sure about the worth of your money....

 

So the moral of the story is that, not the Kindle but ‘Kindle unlimited’ has failed to kindle my soul. The question that pops up in  my mind time and again to ask Amazon, whenever I search for a good book  and it is not available on it is ‘ Are you kindling me ??’ err.. sorry.. ‘are you kidding me’??

 

So What is your 'Kindle' story ???