Why I’m not going to buy a Kindle. Yet.

I love digital media. I love that, while living in Kansas, the Internet made it possible for me to read the New York Times and Washington Post every day, giving me a deeper understanding of the day’s news than could be provided by the heavily chopped-up AP dispatches that my local newspapers carried. (This may not seem like a big deal to you, but in growing up Kansas during the 1980s, it was basically possible only to get the Sunday Times — and then only a few days later, through the mail, when much of what it contained had become stale.) And the iPhone: Where do I start? I love being able to carry around access to much of the world’s knowledge in my pocket. That’s nothing short of miraculous, when you think about it.

So I love digital media. And that love, I think, translated to my recent lust for a Kindle. The idea of being able to carry your library with you everywhere has incredible appeal — especially if, like me, you’ve recently packed up everything you own and moved it 1,000 miles. (Books are the nastiest thing to move. You either have to move lots of small, heavy boxes or a few big, very heavy boxes. Either way, it’s a pain.) The idea of instant gratification is also appealing: “Hey, that book reviewed in the paper sounds good. I’ll turn on my Kindle, buy it and start reading it right now!” The recent introduction of the Kindle 2 built my lust to a fever pitch; I knew I had to have the Kindle, and have it soon.

Thanks to some well-timed windfalls, I recently scraped together enough money to buy the Kindle.

And then I hesitated. Because I am a sentimental fool.

You see, I love books. But it’s more than books I love: I love the culture of books. I love wandering into a bookstore and finding myself surprised by a recommendation from a clerk whose quirky tastes match (and, yes, guide) my own. I love the readings, and I love the time spent idly browsing. When my wife and I got married, we invited the owner of our favorite bookstore. One of the first things we did upon moving here was figure out where the nearest stores were.

A Kindle would allow me — even require me — to bypass that process. I’d get to clear away the thicket of relationships I’ve built up around reading, but I don’t really want that thicket to be cleared. And the truth is, I don’t need to carry around an entire of library of books with me — I can ony read one book at any given moment, and it might as well be the one I put in my bag. Most horrendously, I’d never be able to lend or borrow a book.

Rather than expand my world, as the Internet has done, the Kindle would appear to narrow it. All so I can do the same thing — read books — that I was able to do before, only without a machine.

(Admittedly, there’s also something in me that resists the notion that you should spend $360 to buy a battery-powered reading device. The old technology works pretty well without adding a cent to my electricity bill.)

Don’t get me wrong: After a lot of failed attempts, I suspect that the Kindle is the device that will bring e-reading into the mainstream. And there may be good reasons to go along with the wave. But I can’t escape the sense that riding that wave will turn book-reading into a rote transaction of information. Buying a Kindle would change my life … in ways I don’t want it changed. So as far as books are concerned, I’m staying analog for now. The future can wait just a little longer.