Kindle: Crave or Scorn?

We've already established that I'm a complete bookworm. Incurably, unrepentantly addicted to the written word, I am absolutely capable of sitting down (or standing up, or lying down, or leaning against something, or walking down the street) with a book and losing any sense of reality.

I've missed Metro stops, set alarms to keep myself from missing appointments, stayed up all night and skipped meals while in the grip of a particularly good story. I scribble in the margins to argue with historians about their interpretation of the facts, to underline possible foreshadowing and ponder what's to come, or to wonder why, oh why, Elinor Dashwood and her Edward can't get their act together. When the books that pull me in deepest end, I miss the characters (which is why I've read Scarlett and three different writers' takes on what came after Elizabeth and Darcy's happily-ever-after).

I struggle with the idea of ebooks and the handheld devices that hold them, like Amazon's Kindle. On one hand, it's great that you can carry around 1,500 books on the Kindle and as many as 3,500 on the Kindle DX - that's a library that would keep a librophile like me busy for several years (or in the DX's case, several more than several years!). On the other hand, a flat, cold screen will never have the same tactile qualities as a book: you can't fan back through the pages of the e-version of A Ring of Endless Light, stopping whenever there's poetry printed on a page, looking for your favorite of Vicky Austin's musings while your finger holds your place. You can't write in the margins. And when you eventually use up your virtual shelf space, you can't box up your older books and move them to the attic; you have to delete some, or buy a new reader.

Admittedly, the ability to easily travel with scads of reading material is worth some sacrifices. But there's one major sticking point for me that has nothing to do with missing feeling actual paper under my fingers: the Kindle and its sibling devices have access to the internet. Of course, they have to in order to download books anytime, anywhere, which is one of their major selling points. And what's the point of having a wireless device that's only capable of accessing one type of wireless information? But, quite frankly, I don't want to have the ability to look up directions, check my email or watch the latest CNN clips mixed up with my books. If I'm going to sit down and read, I want any interruption to be because I'm ready for one, not because I feel like - since I'm sitting with internet access in my lap - I've gone too long without checking for messages.

So I think I'm still an ebook hold-out. What about you, is Kindle something you'd love to have or want nothing to do with? What are your pros and cons?