like paper books. Kindles are nice and all but give me a nice solid book to put on the coffee house table and I’m set. Even today, the woman collecting the dishes asked me if I was enjoying my book. I don’t think she’d ask if I faced the glow of a kindle screen.

However, today was a bit of a quandary. I was in the death throes of The Hero of Ages, a nearly 600 page phone book that rounds out the MistBorn trilogy. I was close to having that mother done. And next up, another hardback (more modest at 300 pages or so), my next book in The Destroyermen series. I was really hungering for that.

Anyway, after I did my morning physical therapy in the rainy wake of a hurricane, I decided (as I was aching through the exercises) that I’d go to my favorite doughnut shop and have a big yummy doughnut and a cup of joe. But to go to this welcome refuge, I’d need my book, yet of course I didn’t want to risk reading off the end of the rails of Hero, so I wrapped both of them into a shopping bag and lugged them in.

So they weighed a bit (and my arms were sore from the workout). And they were a handful (about 4 inches wide, all told). Yes, so I came into the shop and set them down on the side counter with a weary thump (the barista/doughnut girl gave me a look).

Yeah, I love reading. But sometimes lugging around hardbacks is a bit of a pain in the forearms. Remember back when paperbacks were called “pocket paperbacks” because authors held their stories to about 150 pages and you could slide them into your back pocket? Not so now, not with people epicing their epics and filling your arms with a palletload of wood products.

Anyway, turns out it was a wise choice. I closed Hero out and got started (with a fresh smile) into Distant Thunders. My load is much lighter, and I’m so much more mobile now.

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