I just read my first book on my new iPad. I don’t know how I feel about it.
I have to admit up front that I got the iPad for free–sort of. It came along with a graduate study program I’m taking, so my relationship with it is less demanding than it would be if I’d paid cash straight out. I had to cart it home from Pennsylvania anyhow, and I’d finished my most recent book (THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO….wonderful!). So I decided to test-drive the iPad on the plane. I bought Harlan Coben’s new mystery, CAUGHT. I love Coben, but I don’t usually keep his novels when I’m done. Bookshelf property in my house is at a premium, like beachfront acreage in Paradise. It can be acquired only by fabulous artists (like KY CRAFT) or word-geniuses (like DOROTHY DUNNETT). Coben goes into the library box, so that the next guy can enjoy.
So…the pros: Reading on the iPad was convenient on the plane. The page is big enough that I could see even with these weak eyes of mine, but small enough that it didn’t seem to annoy the guy in the seat next to me. The backlighting worked in the dim atmosphere of a late-night flight. Flipping through pages is kind of fun (I’m easy to amuse), and the bookmark feature is nifty.
But…the cons: When I got home, and I crawled in bed at night, ready for my lovely ten minutes of reading before passing out, I looked at the cold, hard metal device and…I didn’t really want to finish the book. It seemed uninviting, more like a robot than a friend.
It’s a machine. A machine. You see, I’m old-fashioned in a lot of ways, one of which is my love of the printed word on paper. I love the look, the feel, the smell of my eclectic personal library. I get a warm fuzzy from just glancing over at my big, battered bookcase and seeing the jagged-tooth line of novels, how-tos, histories, poems and childhood leftovers. I take them for granted far too often. I don’t organize them properly. I use them for coasters and paperweights, and, once or twice, to hold open an irritating window. I tilt them and stack them haphazardly. I tear their dust jackets and dog-ear their pages. But, in spite of all this, I love them with the kind of love I ordinarily reserve for family members and old friends.
They stand for so many things: for love and wisdom and laughter, for my heritage, my comfort and my memories. I grew up in a home with a library that held thousands of books, and my father’s bookplate, faded and curling at the edges, turns any book into a treasure. No dwelling becomes a home to me until the books are on the shelves. When I first visited Trinity College’s exquisite library in Dublin, I practically burst into tears, as if I’d finally landed on my home planet.
And yet…I don’t want to be the narrow-minded old bore who won’t embrace the future. I love learning and changing. I have been dragged, growling, to a hundred things (Facebook, iPhones, iTunes, tofu) only to end up addicted, unable to imagine life without them. So to my more-evolved friends out there, I pose the question. What’s wonderful about reading books on machines? Help me see the light!
How I wish I could answer your question, Kathleen. But I’m even more of a literary Luddite than you are. I don’t have any electronic device for reading books, unless you count my computer.
I’m currently reading a downloaded novel on it—one I really enjoy. But how I wish I could read it in the manner to which I’m accustomed, holding a print book while I’m stretched out in bed with pillows under my head and shoulders and a cat or two curled up against me.
I feel about my print library much like you feel about yours. My books are the story of my life. They’re my connection to so much that has been and still is important to me.
Right now the Internet, especially Facebook, is my prime connection to others. But the habits of a lifetime are hard to overcome.
I’m sure I’ll eventually give in and buy an electronic reader. But I’ve got other priorities. Not to mention whole boxes full of print books I haven’t read yet!
Keep up the good work.
I have a reader in my iPhone and find it awesome to go on the screened porch in the dark to read at night. If I drift off it knows right where I left off. As someone who has moved a LOT I found keeping only the really meaningful books more efficient. Terry got tired of lugging around books that have already been read. My phone is always with me so reading on the fly is a treat. I just never know when I will have a few minutes to indluge my recent read. Grisham, The Innocent Man.
Mary Anne, it sounds as if you really do understand. When you break down and buy one, let me know! Meanwhile, it’s nice to know that I’m not alone!
Jane, I have to admit that the description of drifting off on the dark porch a night, listening to the fountain and the windchimes and the tree frogs while reading on the iPad does sound intriguing.
As you know, though, I’m someone who almost never moves–or changes anything, if I can help it! 🙂 But I can certainly understand what a pain lugging the books around is. Renie, who also loves books, had four different apartments in four years of college, and on moving day I would gladly have burned her entire collection!
Kathleen,
I wish I had the answer. I’ve downloaded Adobe Digital Editions from EHarlequin. I have downloaded some books. But let me tell you there is nothing in my opinion like holding a book. I have thought about the Kindle, but I can’t quite bring myself to really doing it.
Right now I really have to think about doing something because I’m running out of space. Books in boxes, in bags eek I’m afraid I’m in big trouble.
I guess I’ve become a romance bookaholic.
So I guess I’ll have to save my pennies and think about the IPad or a Kindle.
Either that or find a contest like Charlene Sands had and win a Kindle.
LOL.
Mary Ann, winning a Kindle would be fantastic! I know what you mean about the space problem. I try to make myself choose these days…do you want this new book enough to toss out one of the old ones? It’s soooo hard, though. Great new books come out all the time, but that doesn’t render the old ones any less important!
I was reading a Cara Summers book last night and some of the supporting characters caught my attention. I went to her website and I have to say, she’s a smart cookie. She creates this greek family and then writes a book about every single one of them! I think there was something like 6 books total about this family. But at midnight, I only had the one, so I headed to Barnes and Noble’s online home, found them in ebook format, and ta da instant gratification. I stayed up until about 4:30am reading another wonderful Cara Summers book and when I woke up this afternoon, I didn’t even have to leave the house in order to continue the series.
I prefer actual books but my Harlequins tend to multiply like rabbits, so I’m thinking of going completely ebook with them. I love almost every Harlequin I read, and I never give them away so it might be something to do!
Kristin, that’s definitely a persuasive argument! I am a huge fan of instant gratification! 🙂 And I have to say you’ve made Cara Summers sound wonderful…I’ll have to check her out! You’re going to sell me on this ebook thing yet!
Yeah, instant gratification is the best! There are so many things in life that I *have* to wait for and that can’t be satisfied instantly, that it is nice to be able to satisfy the smaller, more manageable things in life instantly. 🙂
I have never read a book from Harlequin’s Blaze line, I didn’t think it was my cup of tea. I prefer Harelquin’s Intrigue, Romance, and Superromance lines and Silhouette’s Romantic Suspense. But I got a box of free Harelquins and they included three of Cara Summers’ works. She has 36 stories published, and I haven’t read everything, but her Angelis series is wonderful! You get the entire family’s story and with each novel, you get a little peak at what’s happening with the couples from previous novels. Win! 🙂