It's hard to feel fondly about a piece of plastic and metal, but the Amazon people who created Kindle 2 want us to embrace the digital reading device like an old teddy bear from childhood.

"Kindle feels great in your hand," they tell us. "Just pick it up and read."

And, unlike those bedtimes when you read a book to your teddy, Kindle 2 reads to you, although in a metallic voice without inflections.

That's one of the new features of Amazon's $359 rekindling of its original book replacement device. It was released with great fanfare by founder Jeff Bezos last month in a series of media appearances, although he never revealed how many of the gadgets have really been sold. (Kindle 1 supplies sold out, but there were no numbers of units acknowledged.)

Bezos promises that you can "rediscover reading" with his sleek gadget. "Go beyond the book," he urges us. "Read a world of content."

Amazon lent the Post-Gazette a Kindle 2 for about 12 days, complete with $30 worth of purchasing power. (Read Adrian McCoy's appraisal of its new technical features below.)

I took the gizmo home to get close with Kindle 2 and its world of content. If you're expecting the whining of a grumpy Luddite, forget it. The Kindle is remarkably easy to read. The words are sharp without any glare and the transition from view to view is quick, maybe quicker than turning a real page.

Downloading books from the Amazon "store" seemed almost instantaneous and very affordable. I acquired Laura Lippman's new novel, "Life Sentences," for $9.99 (Amazon was paying) and started bouncing through the straightforward story.

As a backup, I had the real Lippman book on one knee, the Kindle-ized version on the other. There, the contrast between the two "readers" was clear:

The real book, with its cream-colored pages and feeling of substance, the tactile sensation of paper and the hardcover material, creates a connection between the reader and the author. Here, in actual dimensions, is a work of art. Seeing its two pages at a time, the reader' eyes can easily roam ahead or back in the story.

The Kindle experience is impersonal and mechanical, giving no real impression of the breadth of work that confronts the reader. Since it presents screen views, not real pages, the Kindle is confining, almost claustrophobic.

Then there's the disgust factor. More than once, I have hurled a book on the floor or against the wall because it was stupid or infuriating. Please don't do that with a $359 piece of gadgetry.