I just finished reading the first novel on my Kindle. I’ve had it since February, but have only had time to read newspapers, magazines, and assigned readings on it.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a crazy reader. In a normal life in a normal week I’d go through a book and two magazines (cover to cover). I don’t have a normal life right now, so I squeeze all of my novels into my vacation. In this case, it was a four day trip to Colorado that included a mini-family reunion and some quality time in Vail mountain biking and whitewater rafting. In case you’re wondering, that’s my way of saying sorry for not posting over the past week …

Anywho, what I really wanted to talk about is the Kindle reading experience. In short, I’m hooked.

I was sitting on the plane and struggled to resist the urge to physically turn the page. I honestly kept lifting my right hand to the top right hand corner of the device. That’s when I realized how into it I was. I flew through the pages, learning to change the page as I reached the third to last line of the current screen so my rhythm was uninterrupted.

I’m still not thrilled with the size of the screen. I don’t feel like I can skim through the text as quickly as normal because I can’t leap through as much text on one page, even when I make the text size really small (and then it’s too small to read easily).

The other big issue with the Kindle is that you have to turn it off during take-off and landing. I had a particularly fussy flight attendant on my flight back from Colorado who wouldn’t let me keep the Kindle on my lap during take-off, I had to actually put it away…like in the back seat pocket. Of course, the woman next to me kept reading her paper book. When will the world catch up with technology?

On the other hand, Seth Godin wants to move the Kindle even further forward. He recently suggested that the Kindle should be configured as a social media tool, allowing people to share favorite passages and view tagged items.

That’s a little too much for me. I agree more with Marketing Ninja who calls this polluted reading, but I admit that I will probably change my mind as I become more neurotic (or less focused) in my reading. It would be awesome to follow the comments of some of my favorite literary critics or authors, but I would have to limit the information and be able to subscribe to specific channels. Perhaps it can be optional for Kindle 2.0 (or at this rate, 3.0).

Oh, the book? Don’t bother reading the second half.