In Defence of Books

There was an update yesterday for iBooks and I downloaded it even though I never use the app. In the description of the new features and fixes, it listed a fix for when the app "unexpectedly quits".

This phrase got me thinking about e-readers or reading apps and their recent rise in popularity.

Now, I'm not against e-readers per se, because anything that encourages people to read is a good thing. It's just that I don't totally get why people use them. 

Sure, you can carry a large collection of books around on a small device. For people who live in a more confined space and have less room for non-essential items, this feature is most certainly a plus.

But for people who have the room for a bookcase or who borrow books from the library, what is point of having a device that holds vast numbers of books? Is it so you can read several books at once? Or, is it that when you go on vacation you can bring a bunch of books without increasing the weight of your luggage?

I mentioned to someone recently that I've never read an e-book and they were a little surprised because they know I'm a big reader. This person said that maybe I wasn't getting the same e-reading experience on my iPad because it is "backlit" whereas the Kindle is not, therefore reading on the latter device is easier and more like reading off of an actual page. 

This argument led me to think, we'll why not just read an actual book? You don’t have to shell out any money to acquire a device that will enable you to read a book. Books don't unexpectedly shut off. There’s no battery in a book that needs charging.  They are portable enough that you can take them anywhere. You can only read one book at a time (not to be confused with having several books "on the go"), therefore the "advantage" of having hundreds of books on your device doesn't seem like much of a benefit at all. I agree that some lengthier books or hardcovers are heavier and aren't the easiest to hold for long periods of time. In this case, maybe an e-reader is preferable but I can't confirm this.

There is also something nice about flipping the pages of a book through your fingers and glancing ahead to see how much more you have to read. This is not possible with an e-book as you can't actually see the thickness of the book itself. Whether you are reading War and Peace or Of Mice and Men the size of the device remains the same. Again, this is most likely a positive for many people. But I like to see concretely or physically how many pages I've read and how many pages I've got to go. Sure, the page numbers are listed on e-books but it doesn't seem that you'd get that same sense of progress being made that you do with a "real" book.

You can lend books to other people, turn them on to a new writer or subject or genre. It's unlikely that you'd lend anyone your tablet or e-reader.

And then there's the matter of selection. I heard an author on the radio a couple of days ago who said there are currently 60,000 e-books available for purchase. This is only a fraction of the number of real books in circulation. Also, there are many out-of-print books to be found at used book shops that you aren't going to find in electronic format.

I’m not against new technology in any way, I just feel that books don’t need a lot of enhancing or digitizing. They’re pretty good just the way they are.