It took a month after I ordered it for Amazon to ship my Kindle electronic reading device. That was plenty of time to change my mind, and I came close a number of times, because it’s pretty expensive. But I thought it would be cool to have something a little more cutting-edge than I usually indulge in, and I thought that in the long run it might even save me some money, because the books pretty much top out at $9.99, even for the very latest bestsellers, with no shipping charge because they’re delivered wirelessly and instantaneously. Plus, it will save trees. No paper equals no trees, don’t you know.

So Monday I got an email from Amazon letting me know that my Kindle had been shipped. Suddenly it was too late to back out, but I wasn’t really going to even if I could. In fact, I’ve been prowling the Kindle site for a month, deciding what books I wanted to download, and what magazines and newspapers I wanted to subscribe to.

There’s no Kindle wish list, so I made the old fashioned kind of list, on paper with a pencil. I didn’t write any bestsellers on my list, because I didn’t think I’d have to be reminded about them. They’re usually close to the top of the search lists anyway. I tended to include classics (you can get Jane Austen’s novels for 99 cents each), books by authors I’ve read and enjoyed previously, and eclectic things from historical novels to young adult fiction. I read all the reviews of whatever I put on the list, and excluded anything that wasn’t highly regarded by a lot of people. I’m pretty good about knowing what I’m going to like reading.

And today, I waited. It’s a good thing I worked frantically yesterday to finish the payroll, because I wasn’t worth much today. I tackled some pretty menial tasks, and I didn’t start anything I didn’t think I would be able to quit at a moment’s notice, as soon as the FedEx guy arrived. Fortunately, he didn’t get here until late in the afternoon, so I actually got quite a lot done.

I won’t go over all of the advantages of the device. They’re well detailed on the Amazon site, and I haven’t found much I don’t like about it so far. I spent the first couple of hours charging the battery and reading the manual (which is actually a Kindle book bundled into it). I ordered a 2 GB SD card, so that I can download way more content than I’ll ever have time to read. Be nice to me; maybe I’ll leave you my Kindle in my will, and you’ll never again have to hunt for something to read.

The first content I ordered was a subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle. I get a 14-day free trial before I have to pay for it, but I’ll probably keep it, because I know the paper well enough to know it has several columnists (Mark Morford, Jon Carroll, Tim Goodman, among others) that I would read every day. Within seconds I had today’s paper at my fingertips, and I found that it’s a lot easier to read it on a lightweight handheld device than by spreading out a half-acre of newsprint. I’m not one to stick to the old ways just because that’s the way things have always been done. If I didn’t think this was an improvement, I wouldn’t have ordered it in the first place.

I also downloaded samples of several books. One thing you can do with Kindle is read the first chapter or two of a book for free before you have to shell out money for the whole thing. I don’t know yet if I’m going to buy any of these books I’m sampling, but at least before I do so I’ll have an idea of whether or not I’m likely to read it. I don’t like spending money for something I’m not going to use. (Which is why I’ve been going back and forth for a month about the Kindle itself, but now there’s no looking back.)