Are you sure you don't need reading glasses? I find reading from screens (such as an iPad) physically much easier than reading from paper. Getting dedicated reading glasses made a huge difference to this and I found reading from paper became enjoyable again.
I do have a second pair of glasses that's slightly weaker than my regular glasses, and I use them for reading. I still struggle to read actual paper books.
I miss the days when Cambridge (UK) was Heffers, Heffers, and Heffers. The main Heffers on Trinity Street, children's Heffers, Art and Architecture Heffers, Heffers Maps, Heffers Art Goods, Heffers Paperbacks and Videos, Heffers in the Grafton Centre. I've probably missed a few!
As a student, I used to stock up on books and foreign magazines at that Bertrand in Rua Garret. It was most of the side of small street block, a series of large rooms, each with its topic. Good stuff for youngsters at the back, I had to cross the whole store.
>Embedded systems engineers command great salaries
This isn't something I've noticed. In the UK at least Embedded tends to be a sensible career, with reasonable work/life-balance. But salaries also tend to be in the "reasonable" range. Maybe the situation is different elsewhere.
I also have a Lamy 2000 and a Vanishing Point. For a long time I didn't use the Lamy very much as it was scratchy compared to the VP. At some point I decided to stick with it and now it gets used most days for work notes and the like. With use it has got much smoother -- it might be worth persisting. (The VP is still more practical for everyday use but just doesn't hold much ink -- and so tends to run out at inconvenient times.)