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UPDATE—July 11, 2023: Good news! The Amazon Kindle (2022 edition!) is marked down by $35 for Amazon Prime Day 2023. Not only does this Amazon bestseller sell out every year when it goes on sale, but it’s also an all-time Glamour reader- and editor-favorite for gifting for its ease of use and inherent versatility.
Both the black and navy colors are going for $65, and you can get either with three months free of Kindle Unlimited for the same sale price. If there was ever a time to snag the e-reader, it’s now.
ORIGINAL STORY—July 12, 2022: While die-hard book lovers might turn their noses up at the Amazon Kindle, I can’t live without the retail giant’s in-house e-reader. And I generally count myself among word snobs—I was voted Class Bookworm eight years in a row, majored in English literature, and fell in love with my husband’s big Midwestern face in a sophomore-year poetry class. I, like many other introverts who hate talking to people, find all my comfort in books.
Sure, the Kindle doesn’t and will never take the place of a paperback—and in a perfect world, I would have built-in bookshelves for my ever-growing collection of books. In the real world, however, I share a studio apartment with said husband and am working with precariously stacked books that hog most of the square footage.
Even though Amazon’s influence on the publishing industry and local bookstores has been highly criticized, the Kindle is a little different. Slim, portable, and straightforward to use, it’s the reason I’ve read more books in the past year than I have in, well, years.
Therein lies the primary advantage of the Amazon Kindle: It clocks in at half the width of the average paperback. That means I can fit it in most of my purses, whether it’s in a tote next to my laptop or shoved into a designer shoulder bag. (Did I bring it to the boutique to make sure it would fit? Ab-so-lute-ly.)
That makes it especially ideal for travel. (I do have to pack a separate charger for it, but it’s the same one for my noise-canceling headphones—again, introvert here—so it doesn’t feel excessive.) Being able to take my Kindle everywhere has been really impactful, since I like to travel by myself and therefore spend a lot of time alone. That could be, would be sort of a bummer…if I didn’t have my Kindle with me.
Even better, I can pack it knowing that I won’t run out of reading material—once I’m done, I can find a WiFi signal and download the next book. It’s a far cry from the time that I had to pack the entire The Three-Body Problem series for a vacation in Europe, with each one of the three books weighing as much as a small toddler. (Come for the aliens, stay for the aliens.) If anything, it’s how I was able to rebound after Song of Achilles with Pachinko—which, in retrospect, was a terrible idea and led to a full month of crying.
What’s also been a newfound game changer is that you can hook it up to your local library. I’m a card-carrying member of the New York Public Library, and through the magic of technology (and the Libby app), I can now place on hold or borrow Kindle-friendly e-books for $0; I just download them to my Kindle via a link. Libraries are essential for democracy and also me, and it’s really gratifying to be able to (1) read for free and (2) support my local branch.
And yes, while I could absolutely put on pants and walk over to the library myself, the convenience of doing it all from the comfort of my couch makes it that more enticing. Even better? The library automatically returns the e-book on your due date—in other words, no fines.
That said, I do own the OG Kindle, a.k.a. the most basic version in the game. Would I love to, at some point, trade in my model for the newest release? Or perhaps upgrade to the Paperwhite version that warms or cools the whiteness of the page based on the time of day? Absolutely. Would I enjoy not having cheesy book ads on the lock screen? Yes.
But at the end of the day, no matter what Kindle I’ll own, I know it does what it needs to—it gives me the books I want to read, whenever and wherever I go. If that’s not a luxury, I’m not sure what is.
Deanna Pai is a beauty writer and editor in New York City. Follow her on Instagram @deannapai.
