My friend Jeff pointed me to Engadget’s article on the new Kindle today, and it got me thinking about how my Kindle has been so life-changing and will only be more life-changing for other people now that it’s available in different colors, has an even faster refresh rate, and is selling for $139.

Have you looked at my Shelfari shelf recently? It’s exploding. Now that I’m never without a book, I’m flying through them like never before. Even crappy books like the Sarah Silverman one. Even books I thought would be crappy but turned out to be engrossing, like Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures. If I get 20 pages into a book and don’t care about it yet, I don’t have to wait until I’m home or at the library to get something else; I just click over to my home screen and choose another one. There’s literally nothing I miss about real books.

I assume you’ll all run out and buy the new version when it’s released on August 27th, but in case you decide to buy the Kindle 2 on eBay for even cheaper, let me recommend the cover that I have. I shopped around for days and finally decided on the TrendyDigital MaxGuard Leather Cover in purple. It’s so sleek and feels so good in my hands with its leather shell and soft suede-like interior. The Kindle slides into its pocket and fits so snugly that it doesn’t need any elastic bands or metal prongs to hold it in. The magnetic closure makes this great little snapping sound when you flip it closed that sounds so smart I can’t help but feel as if everyone on the train has heard it and is envious of me.

I’ll tell you who I’m envious of, though: these people who carry their Kindles without any case at all. I see them on the train with their 1/3rd-inch-thick readers, and I think, How rich must you be to not care about scratching that thing up? I’ll bet they’re all reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, too.

(Okay, fine, I read it and didn’t hate it.)