Do I Have Too Many Kindles?

Sometimes too many is just the right amount.I recently bought a Kindle Touch. I didn't need one, as I already have 3 others: a 1st generation Kindle, Kindle 3, and a Kindle Fire. Some of you might consider that to be too many Kindles. Not so! I had specific uses for 3 of them, and today I discovered a use for many more.

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        The 1st gen is an original, I'd say it's a "First Edition" Kindle, and although it's ugly and outdated, it was signed by Neal Stephenson, whom I admire very much. I stood in line at a reading he did for his book "Anathem" with the (then new) Kindle and a Sharpie. I was the only Kindle person in line. I have no way of knowing how often he'd been asked to sign a Kindle, but he casually took it, asked "Front or Back?" and signed in without comment. There is no way I'm selling that one.
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        The Kindle 3 has been my daily reader for a long time, and it works just fine. My only complaint is that since I never used the keyboard, it seemed a waste of space to have one. Another drawback is that I know the Kindle Touch exists.
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        I bought a Kindle Fire thinking it would be great for reading and watching the occasional movie. As it turns out, I just don't enjoy reading long texts on a backlit screen. After a couple of hours my eyes burn and a headache follows. It's now primarily an Amazon Video watching device. Works great for that.
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        The Kindle Touch was not necessary at all, but since I've been reading quite a lot lately, I picked one up anyway. Good move. I was worried that the touch screen would either smudge or I'd turn pages accidentally or it would be awkward to hold. None of these happened. It's lighter than the Kindle 3 and the unnecessary physical keyboard is gone. I love it.
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        I was talking with a couple other Kindle owners, who suggested that I could lend out my "extra" Kindle(s). What a great idea! Instead of lending a book to someone, I can lend them my <em>entire library!</em> Indeed, the number of people I can lend to simultaneously is limited to one or two, but how great is it that one or two friends can read, skim, sample, or ignore every Kindle book I own? The frightening thing is that now I want to buy more Kindles just so that I can lend them out and share all of my favorite books at once. In fact, I wonder how low the price will go on new Kindles. Right now, at $79 it's not far away from the price of a few decent hardcovers just a few years ago.
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        To help my friends decide if I have a book they might be interested in, I've tagged all of my Kindle books on Goodreads. They're here at <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1259384?shelf=kindle">goodreads.com/jackbaty</a>
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        Until Amazon and the publishers make it easier to lend Kindle books, this may have to do. And I no longer have too many Kindles.
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