I love books. I have kept nearly every book I ever bought or received as a gift. I have thrown out only a few. Ever. Particularly wretched stuff or, perhaps, paperbacks that suffered water damage. Almost all the rest, I have here and there. Back in the apartment in Long Beach that we rented out. In storage.

I love libraries. I love reference books. I like the idea of walking up to my library and pulling out a book I have read before … and read my favorite bits again.

But a personal library is a non-starter when you are an expatriate. How many books can you take when the weight of your luggage is limited? How many can you purchase when books are expensive items, overseas? Where do you store them when you don’t know if you have room in the apartment for a microwave? And how can you keep them when you know you have little or no chance to take them back to California?

That is where the Kindle comes in.

The tech-savvy among you probably already own a Kindle. Or already decided you didn’t want it and would wait for the iPad. Or something else.

I couldn’t wait. I have the Kindle.

For the tech-challenged, the Kindle is a machine with a leather-like cover, abot five inches wide, about seven inches tall and not quite an inch thick.

You flip open the cover, turn on the machine and there is a screen … with a keyboard below. A “page” of a book is displayed on the screen, When you want to turn the page you click “next page.” If you want to back up, you click “previous page.” You have the ability to adjust the point size of the type and because it is backlit you don’t need as much light as you would for a bound volume.

The Kindle is designed to hold up to 1,500 books (one a week for the next 30 years) — once you have downloaded them and, in most cases, paid for them.

Some books are free. The Bible. Huckleberry Finn. Moby Dick. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Some cost a few dollars. And new books might cost $10.

To choose what you read, you go to “home” and page through your collection. When you see the book you want to read, you move a little toggle switch atop the book you like, and press the toggle switch, and the Kindle 1) goes to the start of the book or 2) goes to where you last left off reading.

The Kindle is a lifesaver for the expat.  The books are comparatively cheap and you can get most anything in print. Since I have been here I’ve read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the American Civil War by John Keegan, The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons, and I’ve re-read the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. I’m currently reading Wolf Hall, on the life of Henvy VIII counselor Thomas Cromwell.

Anyway,  to buy those books here in Abu Dhabi … would be seriously expensive. Maybe $30 each. If I could find them.

Instead, I buy them for $10 or less, using money from gift certificates I got for Christmas. And I’m covered for quite some time. (I plan to re-read Dune, soon, given that I live on the Arabian Peninsula … and see if I can finish it, on my third or fourth try.)

The Kindle has a dictionary. It can read to me, albeit with a mechanical, uninflected voice. It has a dictionary.

I would rather have my bulky libarary. My books on a shelf, to look at and admire, and to walk up to and flip open to my favorite part.

I will never get past that tactile preference for the bound volume.

But in a world where so many of us travel so often, and are forced to travel light … then you find yourself with the Kindle always within reach.

I am about to join Wolf Hall, already in progress.