I wandered into Powerbooks while waiting to be seated at Saisaki for lunch last Sunday and discovered a nifty new gadget that’ll help me reach my target of over 234 books this year: the Thumbthing.The dynamics are hard to explain, so I’m borrowing a diagram from the ThumbThing website to explain:
And here it is in action:
It’s been four days and I’m thoroughly enjoying this little thingamajig, which makes juggling a book so much easier for me, especially when I’m multi-tasking. The ergonomic design allows you to hold a book open with one hand, freeing your other hand to attend to other things. It doesn’t break the spine of the book (yay!), and it doesn’t obscure the text either, because the wings fit neatly in between the lines.
You can also use it as a bookmark, although strictly for leaving books on flat surfaces — it’ll probably get dislodged when you stow it inside a bag.
I’ve tried it on different books, and it works perfectly on everything from mass market paperbacks to standard hardcover novels. Doesn’t work on magazines and coffeetable books, but I think that’s asking for too much. Also doesn’t turn the pages for you, but then again, a page-turning device is also asking for too much.
It comes in a variety of sizes (mine’s a small and it fits perfectly) and colors (I wanted a pink or blue but they didn’t have it in my size so I had to get purple) too. My tiny complaint — I wish they had thought of adding a little hole to thread a handstrap or an id strap through for people like me who tend to lose (knock on wood) or misplace little things like this. Oh, and I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m foreseeing a juggling act reading in the dark with my Lumos booklight on.
Hmm, maybe I should stock up — I could try reading two books at a time, one in each hand!
(Clarification: not a sponsored post, despite my rave review :D)
Rating: 5/5 stars!