Julia Larson is a freelance copywriter and copyeditor. When she’s not on a quadrilateral device, she’s on her yoga mat, a hike, or a cooking spree.

If you’re a book club enthusiast, then an ereader is (or has already proved to be) your new best friend. From instant access to your new novel, an ereader enhances your book club experience from start to finish. Although I’ve only recently become a book club attendee, I’ve found that my Kindle Paperwhite is an invaluable asset.

Here are five reasons an ereader is your best book club companion:

1. Start reading almost instantly.

No need to wait for a book to arrive in the mail or travel to your library’s shelves. You can easily download your ebook as soon as that month’s book is announced. And you’ll be extra thrilled when the book you want is downloadable for free from your library’s ebook collection.

Pro tip: If you know the lineup of your club’s reading, check out your library’s ebook collection early. That way you can put holds on any popular titles.

2. Highlight sections you want to discuss.

Sure, you can highlight in a traditional book, but with an ereader, your highlights are aggregated for easy access. Never again will you flip through your book with frustration, searching for that one page…

And don’t forget to take notes on those highlighted sections to share with your reading buddies!

3. Take copious notes.

An ereader’s ability to catalogue your notes is a huge boon to your reading experience—and even your vocabulary. Instead of flipping through all your pages or carrying along a notebook, you can seamlessly integrate your note-taking with your reading. For detailed instructions on how to highlight and take notes with a Kindle Touch, view this YouTube.

Later on, when you’re in your book club’s discussion, you can easily recall what excerpts & questions you want to bring up. (This is also awesome for the discussion leader of the group.)

4. Easily look up passages.

While a book club that relies on page numbers could lead to some frustration, the easy keyword lookup on an eReader counteracts it. If someone gives you a word or two that appears in the section, you can quickly see all the places it occurs in your novel. Additionally, there are certain ebooks (like The Light Between Oceans) that sync the traditional book’s pages with the ebook version.

For illuminated/backlit ereaders:

5. Comfortably read indoors & outdoors.

During my book club, I’m sometimes in the shade and sometimes in direct sunlight. Either way I can simply adjust the brightness on my Paperwhite. Of course the lighting is a major advantage throughout your ereading, from the moment you download your ebook to your club’s meeting.

Comment with your input!

Are you an avid ebook reader in a book club? What other advantages have you noticed with your ereader?

Our new Unknown Reader shares her evaluation of her experience with her very first ereader. Curious about the features of the new Kindle Paperwhite? Keep reading.

Only six weeks after awaking my Kindle Paperwhite from its shipping siesta, I simply can’t see myself ever going back to only paper-paged books. My first ereader has transported me to the ethereal land of e-ink, where I read quickly, quietly, and comfortably.

This comes as a terrific surprise to me. I grew up loving the scent of new paper and ink. I recall sticking my face between the pages of a new book in the elementary school library, drawing in a huge sniffff, trading my book for my friend’s, then both repeating the process. As my school days progressed, I still loved books, but I grew to resent a Norton Anthology’s toll on my wrist, a stubborn shadow on a page, a long passage in size 8 font.

So now I have a Kindle Paperwhite. Have you considered getting one? Before you do, consider my experience thus far—the good, the bad, the Kindle.

+ The Pluses:

• Brightness anxiety, begone! With 25 possible brightness levels (0 to 24), your eyes can be comfortable in any setting. Especially as someone who keeps their laptop screens quite dark, I was nervous that the Kindle would be too bright—but it’s not. Glare is also minimal on the matte screen.

• Incredibly light and easy to handle, the Paperwhite is certainly no paperweight (though I’ve witnessed “Paperwhite” misheard as “paperweight”), which makes me more apt to tackle a heavy book (War and Peace is downloaded and intended to be read). (more…)