School’s out for summer. School’s out forever. Kindle school, that is. I’ve learned what I need to learn. I’ll glean what I need I need to glean. My third Kindle has broken. It was a free replacement for my second Kindle, which also broke. I ain’t going to Kindle, no more. It has nothing to do with the customer service at Amazon.com USA. The best corporate customer service I have encountered, ever. It has everything to do with paper. I prefer it.

I like picking up a paper novel that I have going in mid-stream and reading 4 pages of content before my brain cells kick in and tell me, “You’ve read these pages before.” No harm; no foul. It’s a good book. They were good pages. Better two times than never at all.

Does this mean I will never read an Ebook again? No. Just not on a Kindle, Nook or any tablet that is primarily a reader. In the last two years I have probably been 60% Kindle 30% paperback writers and 10% hardcover. Guesstimates. Margin of error: huge. But a man needs a plan. My plan is to go 80% paper and 20% electronic. How? I’m not downloading free books anymore. Yes, there are some good ones out there. But there are more crap ones. I don’t have time for crap, anymore. And those T. Jefferson Parker novel’s for $1 are a pretty good deal, I have to admit. But 9 times out of 10 I never read that $1 book. Ever. So, the plan is, pay the ten bucks or so for the real deal. Read it. Then put it on a shelf or loan it to a friend, face to face not electronically. We do enough stuff online. Online banking is good. Online loaning books to a Facebook friend you’ve never even met in person? Not so good.

This is not meant to be a persuasive post. Forget yourself and forget any inferences you may have drawn. To each his own. There is no right and wrong when it comes to reading. Reading is generally good as long as it’s not a “How To” bomb-making site or anything that encourages hate. Hate = Bad. Period.

As for the 2 out of 10 books I plan to read electronically, I’ll do that on my Kindle Cloud reader via my Samsung 10 inch Google Chromebook. Problem solved.

I do plan to download the free samples and ARCs from NetGalley.com when available, though. So any authors out there, please make those as long and as frequent as possible. Some of you are generous. Some of you skimp a bit too much. But too many times, after reading a good, free sample, I bought the Kindle version and then later bought the paperback. No more. Free sample + paper book if it passes the acid test is part of the plan. Wish me luck. Time for some music.