Of course we
cannot haul around reference books and heavy novels, but there are some useful
workarounds. The e-book readers now available (Nook, Kindle, and their kin) are
a great help. I just downloaded Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural
Selection onto my Nook (from Gutenberg.org,
an excellent free source for classic books that are in the public domain). Most
people would find it very easy to travel without Darwin’s book, but as a
biology writer and editor I like to have it around for reference. I read it thoroughly
in college, and once was enough. Using the Nook has been frustrating; I got it
for only $80 on a Black Friday sale, and probably should have bitten the bullet
and spent more for a Kindle, which is easier to use. I’m gradually learning how
to read and save library books on the Nook, and bought a couple of e-books from
Barnes & Noble. It will be very useful for travel, and even at home I like
the lighted screen. This will never replace printed books, though.
We can also
borrow some magazines and newspapers for online reading through the library,
but I have yet to master that process. It looks as if some of the magazines we
enjoy, such as Discover, are available
for borrowing, and many others can be subscribed to commercially if we want to actually
pay for them.
Being necessarily
frugal, we tend to avoid paying for reading material if possible. Stopping at
libraries along the way, as I described in an earlier post, is a pleasant way of catching up on reading
and using Wi-Fi. (We do put a little money in each library’s donation jar.)
There are also a
few printed books and magazines in the View, of course. We need specific
information about the places we want to visit, a Walmart atlas helps when we need
to blacktop-boondock, and there are always a few items we can’t pass up. These
can help keep us satisfied until we go home, or to the next library.
