I've never used an e-reader. There, I said it.
It's not that I don't like digital things. As you may have guessed, I blog. I also e-mail, go on Facebook, watch YouTube videos, shoot photos with a digital camera, research stuff on the web, "attend" online meetings in a chat room, do freelance editing and proofreading in a pixel way, write a weekly newspaper column on my computer, and recently authored a book I keyboarded in Microsoft Word.
Come to think of it, all those digital doings are one reason why I don't want to go the "e-route" for book reading. My eyes look at a screen enough hours in a day. After that, it's a relief to read novels printed on old-fashioned paper.
I also like the feel of print books and the way their covers look. Well, at least the way the better-designed covers look!
Then there's the pleasure of visiting my town's library or two independent bookstores to get novels. I might chat with employees at those three places. I might run into a friend, or a parent of one of my daughter's former classmates. And as I scan the shelves for particular titles, I might serendipitously spot other titles that intrigue me.
For instance, I decided to read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women for the first time last year. As I searched for that novel in the library's "A" row, I spotted a bunch of Margaret Atwood books and realized I had never read anything of hers besides The Handmaid's Tale. Soon, I rectified that mistake!
The same thing happened in the same library when I put my hands on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which led me to notice Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. The 3-H Club!
I then had a yen to reread The Time Machine. While searching for it, I spotted a red-covered book called The First Men in the Moon. I knew that H.G. Wells (along with authors such as Jules Verne) was a sci-fi pioneer with 1890s novels such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, but I had never heard of the 1901 Moon. It's now my favorite Wells book.
No single library contains as many novels as you can choose from for an e-reader. But I have so many titles on my to-read list (including dozens of great recommendations from HuffPost Books commenters!) that I can always find some of those titles on my local library's shelves. And if a bookstore doesn't have a novel I want, I can ask the store to order it. I also buy books online, but sparingly, because I prefer to patronize my town's brick-and-mortar retailers.
Some people continued to ride a horse-and-buggy after many other people switched to cars. Some radio listeners initially didn't buy TVs after many other radio listeners did. Maybe I'm one of those late-adopter types. And I realize e-readers have some advantages over dead-tree, attached to-each-other pages.
But at least for now, I'm sticking with print books. There, I said it.
Like the phenomenon of learning a new word and then seeming to see it all over, many times I have read something about an author with whom I was unfamiliar, gone outdoors, and there was one of his or her works on one the tables on Broadway manned by these booksellers. A bit dog-eared, sometimes filmed with grime on the covers, but sturdy enough for another reading at least. William Hazlitt and ETA Hoffmann both came to me by this means, and I am for the length of my life enriched by my acquaintance with them.
I get books that are new to me, and cheap, and I help those in need. I won't be migrating to e-books anytime soon either.
Then I found myself buying one in a random session of retail therapy. It’s still very new, but I don’t know how I ever managed without it! I can go book shopping at any time of the day or night, and delivery is under a minute. Most nights I fall asleep reading, and when I wake up, the kindle has remembered where I got up to. No more bookmarks in between the sheets, and no more books dropped on the floor, damaging pages in the process. And if I read while I’m having breakfast, I no longer need to put my wallet on top of the book to keep it at my page (which can get tricky when you’re trying to juggle your knife and fork, and your wallet, and turn the page). I know it doesn’t look like a book, sound like a book, and it certainly doesn’t smell like a book, but it really is very close to it. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but with the e-ink technology, it really is just like real paper.
Your start-of-the-comment line about paper being "even more like paper" was very funny! Then your line about e-ink technology being "just like paper" brought your mini-"story" to a nice conclusion.
It IS annoying having to put something on top of a print book to keep the darn thing flat. Books often seem to stay open only when one is roughly halfway through them!
I look for the ebook versions now becuase of the convenience to me. I don't buy print books unless I'm forced to -- no ebook version or it has a lot of illustrations that I want to access.
Slightly off topic, but...I saw your Atwood reference and was excited because I'm right in the middle of "The Handmaid's Tale" myself. I started a few days ago and have fallen for her similes - they literally fall off the page, as numerous as they are, but I love them. She makes fascinating observations about sexuality, too. I think the prose is a little uneven, but I like how seamlessly she intertwines Ofglen's memories and her present situation. These are just a few thoughts I have on it; I'm only on page 70!
Margaret Atwood is a fabulous author. It has been many years since I read "The Handmaid's Tale" (though I plan to reread it), so I can't remember what I thought of that novel's prose. But many of Atwood's later books are written almost perfectly in my mind. These include "The Robber Bride," "The Blind Assassin," and the historical fiction masterpiece "Alias Grace." I'd be interested in hearing more of what you think about "The Handmaid's Tale" after you finish it! Thanks for commemting, threnodymarch!
Anyway, just a short list of the new discoveries you have to look forward to when you finally break over and try out an ereader.
Finding out that you really dont notice that you aren't reading a paper book while you are reading Realizing that even though you just finished the book you were reading on your long airplane ride, or airport layover, that you still have a hundred books right there patiently waiting to be read.
After watching an interview with an author about his new book, even at two in the morning, you just open your ereader and buy his book.. it is there within minutes ready for you to start reading.
If, like me, you wish to encourage the young people in your life to develop a love for reading, you find that if you give them a Kindle as a present (I put them on my account and tell them the same I used to say of paper books, that I will buy as many books as they can read), they are reading constantly, and in the process have developed a wide area of interests. (My thirteen year old grandaughter has actually started downloading books I bought for myself because she has become interested in reading about more than teenage vampire angst.)...
continued in reply post because I cant seem to make it fit
If you want to reread a classic, or read it for the first time, you discover they are out there.. for free!! Just a quick download and you are immersed in some of the great stories of the past.
My grandson downloaded the Bible onto his Kindle, and has great fun telling me how annoying he must be at Sunday School when he types in a word to search for a passage and has it within seconds. I have tried this with some of my favorite poetry with much less stellar success.. I always find something else comes up that I get lost in and then I forget what I was looking for in the first place.
So, just a whole new world of literary discoveries to add to the joys of life!
Comments such as these about the joys and utility of eBooks are exactly the problem that has yet to be given a name. Reading, real reading, requires deep attention. "Search reading," is scanning, skipping, touching, listening, anything, in other words, than bearing down and getting lost in the world created by literary artists. Adult readers with the long experience of having noses firmly pointed to the printed page can handle these distractions. Kids? We're teaching them how NOT to read.
Plus, the cats like to watch the shiny keys jump back and forth.
If you like to wile way time in used book stores, may I suggest King's in Detroit and Renaissance in Mylwoky. Keep up the analog work!
I bought an iPad about a generation ago (6 months). It comes with an e-reader function called iBooks. I also downloaded nook and the Kindle. They are free apps.
If I really want to read a book, I buy it in hardback when issued.
But, if I see a book that looks a bit intriguing but not enough to buy, then I use my eReaders and download it. Then, with all the flying I do, it is the perfect time to start on and finish those books without putting your luggage over 50 lb threshhold.
An example: I saw a book titled Keep the Change by Steve Dublanica. Never heard of him. Turns out, he's a waiter in high end restaurants. and he wrote this book about the the tipping habits of different kinds people for various services, small, large or tawdry. It sounded like a hoot, but enough to pay full hardback price.
For instance, before my last deployment I picked up a short story/book by Henry Baum entitled The American Book of the Dead. I would have never seen this book had I gone into a book store, and if I had I can only imagine how much I would have had to pay for it. It was one of the more interesting pieces I'd ever had my eyes look at, and all because I got a Kindle.