I never thought about what books I’d want with me on a desert island until I found myself on one when I moved to New Zealand last year.

Only kidding. Technically, New Zealand is two desert islands separated by a narrow strait.

But the point is, as my wife and I prepared to pick up shop from New York to her native Auckland, we had some reckoning to do. With a fixed budget, how do you decide what books are worth the cost in freight to ship overseas?

The selection process made me want to puke. It triggered an anxiety I usually associate with “top-ten” lists, where the prospect of having not read someone’s favorite title indicated an essential deficit to my education, taste or intellect.

Like when the New York Times published its top-25 list of “best” American fiction from the previous quarter century, I remember ticking off the titles I’d owned or read (Independence Day by Richard Ford? Yeeaah, boy) while castigating myself over those that I’d missed (Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, what moron could have missed that?)

But why should I care what fiction the Times decided was “best”? What programmatic cross section of the reading population in America was I desperate to affiliate myself with, anyway?

I don’t know. But because I sometimes think that way, I began to wonder about the value I placed on my books and why I owned any of them in the first place.

Did I really like The Savage Detectives? Or did I think I did because some abstract authority or institution or strategic placement in Barnes and Noble made me believe I should? Did I prominently display my copy on the off-chance that a dipshit like myself would come to my apartment, browse the shelves and say, “Hey, you read Roberto Bolano just like me. High five.”

Uh…maybe.

Anyway, we decided. We packed some of our books, and the rest we sold or placed in small piles on the stoop in front of our apartment day after day. Each pile disappeared immediately and sometimes strangers would stop us on the street and ask when there’d be more.

By the time we finally got to New Zealand, I’d forgotten what books we’d packed. It was good enough just to have these familiar, tangible objects from back home regardless of whether my rationale for owning them was “pure” or from vanity or just some inexplicable neurosis.

There was my 16 year old copy of The Odyssey, for example, one of the few fictional works of length that I’ve read more than twice, which I must have brought over because I could never figure why Penelope never filed for divorce.

Then there was A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman’s amazing history of the “calamitous 14^th century” with its endless war and incredible gap between the noblemen and the serfs, I guess because sometimes it’s nice to see how far humanity has progressed. I bought that book 12 years ago, when I needed stimulation living alone in a sleepy upstate New York village and the local hoodlums wouldn’t sell me pot.

Then there was Being and Time by Martin Heidegger, because sometimes one of the legs on your dining room table is six inches shorter than the other three.

Then there was the bulk of the Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian, because my grandmother is such a fan and she gave them to me and I’ve only read the first three volumes so far and I’m afraid that if I don’t read the rest she’ll pull my ears.

There was also A Form/Of Taking/It All by Rosmarie Waldrop because I had so much fun in Shelley Jackson’s class at New School, and Castle to Castle because I had an interesting argument about reality in Ben Taylor’s, and I want to feel like my MFA was worth the price.

And there was my ancient copy of The Soft Machine collaged over by my friend from art school who broke my heart, and the collection of essays by Murray Kempton from the friend whose heart I broke, and a ragged old Blood Meridian from a friend who is still my friend and missed.

And there was The Metamorphoses because you can’t make that shit up, and a volume of the Gnostic Gospels because what else am I going to read in the toilet?

And there was Watt because it once belonged to my late father and I wondered if he’d ever read it himself, and besides, what is funnier than Watt? And Sixty Stories, because what is funnier than Sixty Stories? And a history of the Battle of Brooklyn because that was what I was reading in the Brooklyn pub where I first befriended my wife 225 years after George Washington retreated to a sleepy village upstate where none of the hoodlums would sell him hemp.

And then, at last, there was Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, because one of these days her list of books “to be read immediately” won’t make me feel so anxious anymore.

This past weekend, B and I attended the 39th Annual Book Fair in Oak Park, put on by the Friends of the Oak Park Library. This book fair is huge; it is hosted in the Oak Park River Forest High School cafeteria and brags over 100,000 books (I’d believe it). We decided to go on opening night, which is integral I think if you want to get the best books. Not that you wouldn’t be able to find some gems on the second night, but the first night is so busy and packed with book hounds, as well as retailers with their little computerized book guns searching for what they need by ISBN, that I feel by night two your chances of finding your own personal buried treasure will have drastically decreased.

The prices for books at the book fair are outrageously low, and since I stick mostly to paperbacks I was able to acquire a considerable haul for only $16. But there are people who go there with dozens of bags, people who bring little wagons (I’m surprised I saw no wheelbarrows), and people who fill wine boxes until the books are spilling over. And the aforementioned retailers, well, they and their overflowing collections, stuffed duffels and canvas sacks, are everywhere. The cheap prices and the vast number of titles call to the bibliophiles, and if you attend this book fair you’ll be face-to-face with the ravenous humanity of all those who think books are worthwhile.

The book fair is an excellent place to people-watch; consider a hot and stuffy high school cafeteria on a summer night, over 100,000 books, and hundreds of people, many so absorbed in their search that they have no qualms with backing their rear-side into you, knocking you over with a bag of books without uttering any apologies, or forgetting that because they are attending a large event, with hundreds of people, in a stifled cafeteria, they might want to shower beforehand. There are books that everybody seems to want — before we arrived, B’s mother (hi Bonnie!) asked us to keep an eye out for Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife; throughout my time at the book fair, I encountered a handful of people wanting the same book. At one point, two different women asked one of the book fair volunteers, almost simultaneously, if she had seen that very title. And then there were books that nobody seemed to want. I have never seen so many copies of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in my life. There were so many copies, both hardcover and paperback, I almost considered buying one myself (almost).

My own personal haul is eclectic, I think, as even though I told myself I could spend whatever I wanted, however much it took, I held back and only got what I thought I would really need and really read. Responsible, no? But I have to admit to you that I purchased three different copies of Moby Dick; I couldn’t help myself. One copy, in my defense, is going to be tore up and have its pages lacquered to the top of our coffee table. The other two, though, will reside on my shelf next to my other vintage copy of Moby Dick, donated to me by my own high school English department some ten years ago when they were clearing out their storeroom.

Keeping with the Melville theme, I also picked up The Portable Melville; this book contains pretty much everything Melville wrote besides Moby Dick, including Typee and Billy Budd, as well as stories and poems and personal letters and more. From another of my favorite authors, I bought All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy; those who know me know I love McCarthy and it may come as a surprise that I haven’t read this, one of his most famous books. I admit, I avoided Pretty Horses for a while as my writing mentor, Stephen Wright, once referred to the novel as “Cormac McCarthy lite.” Despite this prejudice, I think it’s also good to hold off on reading every book by your favorite authors and maybe save some for later; I haven’t read any of the Border Trilogy (of which Pretty Horses is included) nor have I read No Country for Old Men. That leaves me a couple books for the years to come, giving me a chance to continue to explore, for the first time, McCarthy’s oeuvre.

I picked up a few more modern books with Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, a novel that retells King Lear but on an Iowa farm and has been recommended to me a number of times, as well as Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. I remember once sitting in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, killing time before class, reading from Birds of America. Keeping with the ladies, I also bought an excellent vintage copy of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, a book all of those interested in post-modernism should read, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I haven’t read much Morrison, only Beloved, but I’ve heard such great things about The Bluest Eye I couldn’t leave it.

Speaking of the bluest eye, I purchased Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter; I met Ford once when he came to speak to my writing class in undergrad (he attended my alma mater) and dude has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen; he was a dreamboat. I was excited to get Grendel by John Gardner; I’ve heard so many good things about this book and I love Gardner’s how-to book On Becoming a Novelist, it was a perfect acquisition. I can’t give any reason why I haven’t read this book before. Another good buy was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird; Being There was given to me a few years back by my friend Rachel and I flew through that novel in a few hours. Here’s hoping Kosinski’s seminal World War II novel is as powerful, painted with his own brand of dark humor, as Being There is.

As a Faulkner lover, I can’t pass up a good vintage copy of one of his books and at this particular outing I was able to get a fabulous condition As I Lay Dying; I love this novel and it’s actually quite strange to me that I didn’t already have it. If you haven’t read Faulkner, or you read The Sound and the Fury and struggled, give As I Lay Dying a shot. Then you’ll see why Faulkner is one of the best authors the US has ever had. From the same period, I got Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. Barnes is an author whom I’ve never read, and I say that with my tail between my legs. This book has been on my list for a few years now and I think it pairs well with As I Lay Dying and To The Lighthouse, and certainly I anticipate seeing shades of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Gotta love the expats.

Finally, we have Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Yes, another author who I am sorry to admit I’ve never read. I could not let this copy of Swann’s Way lie; it is a beautiful vintage hardcover, Modern Library edition. The dust jacket is still in great condition for its age and the pages have yet to brown. I’ve been meaning to read this for years and I can’t wait to tear into this copy.

Overall, a great collection of books for a very small pittance. I love book fairs, despite all the people, and if you’re in the Chicago area and are only now being introduced to this annual book fair, make sure to put it on your calendar. The book fair is always the first weekend in August. Maybe I’ll see you there next year.

Last week, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX, which will be the third version of the online retailer’s electronic reader. Currently, there are a little over a dozen various models of readers from different manufacturers on the market, but the Amazon Kindle is the hands down leader (a good simile: it’s like what the iPod is to other digital music players).

When the Kindle was first announced two years ago, I was writing for a Web site that covered online consumer electronics deals. As a bibliophile and a tech geek, I was pretty psyched. My colleagues, on the other the hand, were not. “I’d rather just read books on my iPhone,” said one, while another even made the argument that the Kindle wasn’t worth buying because “you couldn’t watch movies on it.” Rejected by my fellow nerds, I turned to my allies of bookworms—surely they would agree with me on the Kindle’s awesomeness? Alas, they did not. Despite the rejection from both sides, I became an early adopter of the first model and have been defending my decision ever since.

The concept of an electronic book is nothing new. At the height of the “digital revolution” many predicted that readers would flock online to read fiction posted on Web sites or via e-mail/downloads as a sort of 21st century serial novel. A great cultural artifact of those days is Stephen King’s novella Riding the Bullet, which went the serial route and even offered the first chapter free (King eventually stopped updating due to lack of interest and published the story in the collection Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales.)

Digital readers aren’t even that fresh of an idea. There are several models that turn up in the flotsam and jetsam of failed electronic fads, rotting and decomposing next to laserdisc players, HD DVD’s, and Sony MiniDiscs. The Franklin EB-500 Rocket eBook is the earliest one I could find. It came out in 1999—evident up by its screen contrast of olive green and dark olive green, stylus pen, and listing date on its Amazon.com entry (Hello, irony). So why are we hearing so much about e-book readers now?

Short answer: the technology is finally starting to catch up with the idea. The earliest model of electronic book readers were essentially LCD screens connected to small hard drives or overbuilt PDAs. This newest generation of readers, including the Kindle, feature electronic paper, or e-paper, which is essentially a digital display that imitates the look of ink on a page by reflecting light instead of projecting (it sounds simple, but in fact it’s very complicated). This makes it easy on the eyes to read, unlike when you read a screen (like on a computer or iPhone) for extended periods of time. It takes a bit of an adjustment, but after a while you can’t tell the difference between the Kindle screen and paper.

What makes the Kindle stand out above the others is its wireless connection. While other readers require users to connect to their computers to download the electronic books to their reader, the Kindle uses 3G WiFi to download books almost instantly. There’s nothing cooler than deciding you want to check out Toni Morrison’s Beloved, looking it up, buying/downloading it, and starting to read it; all within five minutes and without getting out of your chair.

But while I made the argument for the Kindle, like Jeff Bezo’s own personal pitchman, I discovered that some critics were right. It kind of does suck when the battery runs out while you’re on the subway and have nothing else to read—paperbacks don’t generally do that. And a lifetime of manhandling reading materials like I was a mentally challenged character in a Steinbeck novel clashed with my need to treat the Kindle with kid gloves. But the thing that really struck me was its lack of feeling like a book. You can’t flip ahead to see how many pages are left in a chapter or to go to the end. The pagination is completely tossed to fit the text to the screen, which makes sense, but it throws you off. I like reading my Kindle, but doing so has an almost ethereal feel to it. It soon devolved into just my newspaper reader, which introduced the sense of guilty for wasting the money and opportunity of such a great device.

I wanted to compare my Kindle experience with another user, so I reached out to my friend Colleen. Two years ago, just after its initial introduction, we’d spent an evening of shared awe for the device over dinner with friends at a Mexican restaurant. We munched on fajitas, sipped tequila, and dominated the conversation by talking about how much the Kindle would change our lives. We both became early adopters.

“It seemed like the greatest thing since sliced bread,” she said recalling our excitement that night. “Convenient, sleek, small, useful and especially when gifted by parents – cheap! Not to mention a better price on the New York Times and discounted book, which at the time I thought I’d be reading a mile a minute on the thing until I kept noticing that what was on my reading list was not necessarily on the bestseller lists found on the Kindle….Many of my favorite authors aren’t very well represented in the Kindle Library: Richard Ford, Zadie Smith. Also, where is the Rabbit series by the recently deceased John Updike?” I remembered my own frustration at being unable to find more of my favorite literary authors; it seemed that new releases and Penguin Classics were all that were available, though the library of accessible e-books is constantly updating (Smith’s books are now able to be downloaded, though Ford’s and Updike’s are still in limbo).

When I asked her how often she uses her Kindle, Colleen demurred. “Not as much as I should,” she said. “Now some of my ‘not-using’ might come my own personal laziness or forgetfulness, but anyway you slice it, I grab it when I get on the F train and end up having to fish back in my purse for the crumpled up New Yorker from 2 weeks ago.” Colleen cited the same problems that I did. She also even uses it to read everything but books. “I only use it now-a-days for the New York Times, Time Magazine and the occasional collection of short stories.” And added, “It’s almost like the Kindle has cut down my reading.” As for the page numbers, she was with me on that, exclaiming, “I want my page numbers back! I mean really, what’s the deal there?”

Surprisingly, when I asked Colleen if there was any upside to owning a Kindle her excitement at its life changing ability was still there. “Obviously the convenience,” she said, “I used to carry a book, the paper, and multiple magazines. This has allowed me to let some magazine subscriptions expire and to cut down on clutter.”

I know that the Kindle isn’t perfect, but most breakthroughs aren’t in the first couple years. There are some definite bugs to be worked out but if anyone can make it work–it’s Amazon. They’ve got the better delivery system, an ever-growing catalogue of titles, and most importantly: the determination and dedication to follow though on this idea. That’s why within two years, Amazon is already releasing its third model; they’re perfecting it. The DX’s larger screen, built-in PDF reader, larger memory, and longer lasting battery means we might see the return of realistic page numbers, the expansion into the textbook market, and maybe even the salvation of newspapers. And that’s pretty cool.