Reading is my passion. The only thing that makes reading better is food. If I'm reading while eating, I'm in heaven. Seriously.
(My family would pass around the Buffalo News during dinner - usually I'd bring whatever novel I was going through at the time and save the comics for dessert. The Chronicles of Narnia are stained with mashed potatoes and gravy, and I'd have to struggle to keep hefty hard covers from the library out of the salad dressing.
Fiction and foodstuffs forever.)
So this lifelong love of reading has been shaken up this past month with the acquiring of... a Kindle (no, I'm not rich, my mom is lending me hers). I brought it on our trip to the DR, and I have to say that I enjoyed it.
What?! English major? Champion of the publishing industry? Bibliophile and lover of all things literary? Traitor! E-harlot!!!
Ok, deep breaths... I will always consider paperbacks holy, hardcovers sacred. And I'm not alone.
At first I really did feel like a traitor. But this test drive has been great.
It's convenient. It's lightweight. Ideal for balancing in transit on the T. Able to be tossed into nearly any of my purses thanks to a durable case. Great for the gym (something that actually FITS into that little trough on the elliptical!). The battery power is amazing, the electronic ink gives no harsh glare, and I have wireless access. I can look up words with a click of my thumb. Best of all - it's small and one handed and I can shovel food into my face while I read on it!
It's possible to read with more frequency, and for longer periods of time. Think about that.
And ignore the hype from the struggling print media giants, who - I think - could really benefit from this technology. There are so many places to grow and expand from this - and talk of making the Kindle and other devices "social" and interactive means there are plenty of advances yet to come (and textbooks - come ON people! Get on that!). This is a very early model - just think how far the iPod has come since 2001. I find that analogy appropriate - MP3s scared the heck out of the music industry and all that Napster nonsense, but artists (especially the new and emerging ones from our own generation) have only benefited from potential fans having increased access to their music. Young authors, rejoice.
The advent of the e-reader is hardly the death knell of the book.
Here is my caveat for all this Kindle worship:
As a hoarder of books, one who proudly displays lovingly worn copies in my home as a point of pride (and no for-show-only-never-been-read-impressive-looking-tomes thank you!), I now find myself with an added dilemma in my book searches. I have plenty of WishListed KindleBooks on Amazon that I'd like to read (oddly enough though I have to use the Universal Wish List, Kindle purchases can't be Amazon Wishlisted right now...). But I also have ten times as many titles I plan to get in print (which I'm desperately trying to track on GoodReads, and have found that to be the most useful function of that site).
What was I saying... OH. Here's the deal - My upcoming book purchases are now weighed by their potential for Benes-ian "print-worthiness."
What kind of books deserve the love and attention and intimacy of print - complete with that most delectable of experiences: the trip to the bookstore to pour over the shelves and select the lucky tome(s)? And then... which ones do I want to shell out 10 bucks for on cold, boring Amazon?
Absurd, that I now decide what will be a book and what will be a just... a file. The reading experiences are completely different, I can tell you that much. And books are certainly not comparable to the CDs we hoarded in ugly towers back in the 90s...
Or are they? Reading will change, it is changing. Pricing needs to come down, that's a given. Sharing of titles should happen, and happen soon. And wouldn't you have LOVED to have had all your textbooks in one condensed reader? I know I would have...
So far I've only bought a few titles, and finished only one so far (Bridget Jones's Diary - what pleasing faux-feminism...). Once I go through a few more titles (which will take awhile as I want to put a dent in the piles of to-be-read paperbacks I've accrued) I'll do a re-evaluation. Until then, I'll add one more thing to its list of virtues: it's a pleasing paperweight.
