At home with the Kindle Paperwhite

A few posts ago, I extolled the wonders of white in nature and now, I have another reason to celebrate that convergence of all rainbow colours. My old and faithful Kindle died, leaving me bereft of a bedside and travelling companion and, of course, with the task of choosing a new one. After mussing over the models on sale, I upgraded to a Kindle Paperwhite. At first, KPW felt like a stranger in my company, the home button having vanished in favour of a tap function that conjures a tool bar at the top of the screen. After four days, an interval that included a dash back to the retailer – my thanks to the kind young gentleman in Waterstones who dealt with a sobbing and hysterical me – I finally got to grips with the new machine. The strangeness vanished and I began to warm towards my companion, delighting in the finger gestures that can flip pages forwards and backwards, and magically (it seems) reduce and increase the size of the text. Another thumbs-up to Amazon for retaining the series of original fascias that appear when the machine is turned off, archaic typefaces and typewriter wheels, antique nibs converging in a star, and the wonderful brass inkwell accompanied by a filigreed pen, tropes that refer to the genesis of printing and wordpressing…