stealth reading light

To rec.arts.books --

I've long been looking for a low-level reading light, for reading at night when
I don't want my spouse to wake up and yell at me!  (I find conventional reading
lights much too bright for this purpose.)  I've just found a light that, while
not completely perfect, is really nice.  It's called EternaLight (sounds
religious, doesn't it) and is a flashlight, but not an ordinary one.  Instead
of a bulb, it uses LED's (light emitting diodes) that emit white light.  It has
12 brightness settings, and with the dimmest setting, the circuitry and the
LED's are so efficient that the 3 AA batteries allegedly last for a staggering
2800 hours!  Even this dimmest setting is too bright for me, though, for
nighttime reading ... so I simply wrap a handkerchief around the thing.
 
Why "not perfect"?  Aside from not going dim enough, it doesn't "remember" its
setting when you turn it off, and then on again ... so I have to bury it under
the covers until I push the right buttons to get rid of its initial dazzling
brightness!  And oh, there is a rapid strobe-like flickering (has to do with
the dimming circuitry I guess) but you probably won't notice that unless your
book is in rapid motion. :) 
 
You should be able to buy this flashlight for $40, or perhaps less ... just go
to google.com and look for the words "eternalight" and "led".  The model I have
is called the "Model 3 Ergo".  Enjoy,
 
        --Tom (who is not making a penny out of this ...)  
 
--
Tom Frenkel
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
website: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~taf2