I recently decided to give the whole e-reader thing a try and downloaded the Kindle app to our iPad. I've resisted the switch for a myriad of reasons, all of which will probably make me seem old-fashioned...or at the very least just plain old.
Jane Eyre was the first book to be downloaded and read electronically. Focusing on the positive, I enjoyed being able to have instant access to the book I wanted to read. I also enjoyed the fact that it was free. That's why I use the library instead of frequenting B & N. The library is free. You get the idea. Another cool feature is the ability to highlight a word and immediately look it up within the text. Now if I were reading Cat In the Hat I might not need that, but 19th century British literature tends to lend itself to words I've never seen before, hence the need for a dictionary.
Holding an iPad in your hands is quite different than holding a real book. I like the weight of the book, the feel of the book, dare I say even the smell of the book. Cradling a cuppa, I plop down in my favorite chair with a good book. I'm taking a break. I'm relaxing. When I sit down in that same chair, with that same cuppa and my iPad, I'm staring at a screen. In my mind, that's analogous to work. Not so relaxing. The electronic craze is all about doing things faster. Blogs are written in short, choppy paragraphs. FB gives us sound bites of people's lives. It's all short and to the point. When I sit down to read I don't want to do it faster. I need to savor the few minutes I have, without feeling the need to click on to the next thing. There's something in me that says Jane Eyre was never meant to be read while staring at a screen. I wonder what Charlotte Bronte would have to say about that?
All that to say I really don't think the e-reader has made me a fan. Instead, I'll keep my library card close and continue to hunt through all those book sales for more volumes to line our shelves. Call me old-fashioned, but some things were simply not meant to be hurried.
