I’m sure most of you heard of the Kindle either before or (definitely) after it was mentioned on the Oprah Show this month. If you were like me you have big plans to get it for yourself as well as for your friends or family members as a great Christmas Gift this year, but there may be a few things you want to know before rushing in and spending $359.00 ($300 with Oprah discount til Friday Oct. 31) on the new “it” item.

First for those that are not familiar with the Kindle it is an electronic book reader that wirelessly and without a computer downloads books, magazines, newspapers, Blogs and RSS for your reading pleasure. It does not take a computer and it does not take a pre-existing Internet connection; it runs off of Sprints very reliable EVDO Internet. You can browse nearly 200k titles on Amazon’s site from the reader and download them within minutes to your reader. It is in my opinion one of the best ideas in consumer electronics in the last 10 years. It seems to be a must have for anyone that reads frequently.

So I in preparation for buying many before this Friday, I had my husband research it a little more to make sure it was worth getting (he doesn’t take everything Oprah says as doctrine) and he found some interesting things.

Now even though many of us are just hearing about the Kindle it officially launched in late 2007 and there has been a lot of mixed messages from early users, as well as a lot of speculation as to a new and improved 2.0 version. If you remember all the hype behind the $500 plus iPhone only to find that the 3G was soon to be released making the old version obsolete within a year of production, you could see why I got worried when my husband started to tell me the same thing about the Kindle. So I did some digging and here is what I found. more…

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I have to share with you one of my favorite and most inspiring books-SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER. If you are into human rights you will love this book! I’m going to share with you quotes from Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi below who more eloquently describe the spirit of the book. However, anytime I want to find examples of the best of humanity and read about heroic human rights defenders who are changing the world-I reach for this book. It always gives me hope from seeing the courage of those who battle injustice and stand up for what’s right no matter what the cost. It also illuminated my eyes to the plight of many people worldwide and the some of the struggles they face that I wasn’t even aware of. A life changing book-one you want to share with everyone. This is a book that I will keep forever!

Speak Truth to Power gives us an insight into the power of the human spirit. It tells us why and how men and women all over the world struggle against oppression, injustice, and cruelty. There is horror but there is also immense hope in this world where dedicated people translate their commitment to human rights into action.
– Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize Laureate

You cannot kill an idea, you cannot imprison freedom. The lives of the common women and men in this book, heroes every one, inspire all who believe in liberty and justice. This book is a tribute to the human spirit and proof of the capacity of one person of courage to triumph over overwhelming evil.
-- President Nelson Mandela

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One of my absolute favorite books is called Man’s Search For Meaning by Victor Frankl. It truly is an incredible book that has so many lessons for life. Lessons for living a real life. There is so much to learn about forgiveness, sacrifice, responsibility, and love. Mainly love. Love ties everything else together.
Anyway, I recommend reading this book for many reasons, but also wanted to share one of my favorite excerpts from the book. Frankl survived the holocaust and that is what the book is based on. He is a psychiatrist and analyzes in depth what the prisoners went through. It’s really an interesting and inspiring book. Here he talks about love and the most important thing in his life-his wife. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen or heard love as true or as beautiful as from Frankl.

“…for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth–that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way–an honorable way–in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.” -Victor Frankl

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