One of my Christmas traditions is that every year, I read James Joyce’s “The Dead” from Dubliners on Christmas Eve. This year, for the first time in about a decade, I ended up spending the evening at my parents’ house instead of going home to my own bed. So it was then that I realized I had left my copy of the book at home.

But! Since I now have a Kindle (thanks to a deal I could not refuse!), all was not lost. I went onto the Kindle Store, found a free copy of Dubliners, and before I knew it I was spending Christmas Eve curled up in bed with Gabriel and Gretta Conroy. Christmas was saved, and the future is now. Sometimes, technology is awfully handy.