I like electronic readers. They are handy and lightweight and they fit easily into a pocket. I can carry one anywhere and load literally hundreds of books onto it. E-readers are slimline and sensible.
But – there’s always a “but” with that kind of optimistic opening statement, isn’t there? – despite their bulk, I still prefer reading real books. Perhaps some part of me is put off by the way in which electronic text sits flat behind a screen, perhaps it’s the way that the obviously monochrome quality of the delivery leaves me feeling disengaged and somewhat unconvinced, perhaps it’s that real books all feel different – different weights, different sizes, fonts, covers, page thicknesses… Reading a book, I can almost feel it speaking to me, in a way that I find missing with electronic media. Is it that electronic book files are almost too alike, or self-consciously clever? I’m not sure.
In any case, my house is now overflowing with books – and I speak as one who keeps her sentimental attachment to them well under control. Living in a small flat, with a husband who is loath to part with his volumes and a daughter whom I am trying to encourage back into a reading habit, I cannot afford to do otherwise.
I’ve also been helping my mother to sort and deliver many of her books to the local second-hand stores, where they are gratefully received. Mum adores books and sees each of her favourites – and there are many – almost as a personal friend, an intimate acquaintance who has been with her on the journey as she has researched and written a dozen books. While she has done a great deal of her research online, still, she would be appalled if I suggested to her that all the material benefits of real books could be replicated by reading electronically. Indeed, she would scoff, demonstrate my folly, and then perhaps suffer a panic attack at the very notion. So we are, and will be, reading real books for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for listening.
Please share:
June 17, 2019 @ 4:15 pm
We have well over a thousand books and my Kindle is pretty crammed too. There are some things that I would not choose to read on an e-reader – Poetry needs pages I reckon and of course anything with images. But there are so many novels making the shelves creak that I am going to have to cull. Some will never go – My ancient copy of The Stand which has been through the hands of most of the family – a copy of Frenchman’s Creek which I dig out just about every year – but ah the crime novels – except the ones that are part of whole sets – oh wait but that’s an awful lot of them – well the chic lit ones then – ah but my daughter in law likes those as holiday reading when she visits – Oh dear.
June 17, 2019 @ 4:55 pm
Oh LOLOL! I do sympathise, Diane! Let’s hang on to our books a while yet. Who knows when we might want to read them again. I must have had about six or seven full sets of the James Herriot books, which I read any time I need a laugh. It’s ridiculous, but, there’s no knowing when they might come in handy.
Frenchman’s Creek I’ve never read, so it’s on my list! 🙂 xx
June 17, 2019 @ 8:02 pm
I am the same, Fran. I read a lot in bed, so the ereader is handy for that as I don’t need the light on to see, but I adore paper books and love buying and receiving them too. It’s very hard to get rid of then, isn’t it?