Buying books is fun, with a glass in your hand from Books news, reviews and author interviews | guardian.co.uk

Author, author: Elif Batuman: Before I first acquired a Kindle, exactly one year ago, I didn't usually buy books while under the influence of alcohol. I won't say I never did it, because that would be a lie. But it wasn't a habit. After a couple of glasses of wine, I tend to fixate on the present. I have no use for five to seven days' delivery time. The Kindle is wonderful for drunk people because you can climb into bed, press one button, and The Anatomy of Melancholy instantaneously materialises before you, plucked by the so-called Whispernet out of the surrounding ether.

The Guardian piece is spot on (as the Guardian usually is), not only about the point about drunk shopping. This is exactly why the iPad and the Nook collects dust, and why our Kindle, not the DX but the smaller one; see, the reader is about portability and readability; i.e. the portability of our book collection, and the readability of the text. Bibliophiles don't care about a moving graphic of some motion of the page flipping across the screen; we also don't need the text laser-etched into our corneas. And we need something that will last a week, without having to recharge.