I love Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. I can just press a button on my Kindle, type in a subject and download a book without paying tons of tiny fees.
Until recently, however, I hadn’t noticed how little Kindle Unlimited time I was actually spending on novels.
So many ‘short, quick guide’ types of books are out there. I have been treating KU like a research service. Every time I find myself bitten by curiosity over some new topic, I go on KU and download half a dozen titles. My information junkie side is loving it.
But I am finally realizing that something is missing. I reached a point last night where I turned on my Kindle and could not find a single thing I wanted to read. I sorted all content (purchases, KU and side-loaded ‘personal content’) by date, and was stunned to find that all of it was information. I had to go about 80 results in before I got to an actual novel.
No wonder I was in a reading slump! Clearly, my reading life will not survive on research alone. I went back to my Calibre library and sorted by genre; then I found ten novels I hadn’t yet read and hit the ‘send to Kindle’ button. I am three chapters into a vintage Stephen King and loving it. He is really under-rated as a contemporary fiction writer. I am enjoying myself immensely.
So, the KU stays. But I think I need to make more time in my reading life for the fiction, too. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I binged on everything but! There is a place for the research trove of information that Kindle Unlimited, Wikipedia and so on offer. But sometimes, you just need to kick back with a good book.