Tuesday, January 31, 2012

To E-Read or Not to E-Read, That is the Question...

We were having book club at my house on Friday night and when it was time to begin our discussion, we all pulled out our books.  Or, I should say, I pulled out my book.  Everyone else pulled out their e-reader: two Kindles, one iPad2, one Nook, and one iPad.  It was the first time I thought to myself, "hmm, I might like one of those..."

I've been pretty resistant to e-readers thus far.  I like having a physical book in my hand and on my bookshelf.  I like that you can walk into the library (now nursery) of our house and see the hundreds of books we've read between the two of us.  How if I want to re-read something - or want to read a "classic" - chances are, it's sitting on my shelf and I can just grab it and go.  I like the smell of books.  And the feel of paper.  I like the crackling noise a new hardback makes when you first open it.

Amazon has also added to my love of physical books because you can pretty much always buy a good used copy for super cheap ($.01 in many cases) as long as you pay for shipping.  And with Amazon Prime, I can order a qualifying book and get free two-day shipping.  Not quite instant - but not too long, either.

But then the girls were talking about their e-readers.  How convenient it is to order a book and have it in an instant.  How cheap the books are - $7.99!  How lightweight and small they are (the Kindles and Nook).  How they tell you how far along you are.  How you can adjust the font size to your liking.

And I started to think about times when it would be nice not to prop open the pages of a book...  When I'm eating lunch; when I'm blow drying my hair; when I'm waiting for stuff to cook in the kitchen; etc.  Or the times when it might be inconvenient to have a bulky book in my bag, but would be easy to pull out an e-reader...  In line at the grocery store; waiting rooms; waiting for food at a restaurant (if I'm picking something up for myself); while pumping gas, etc.

I think, if anything, having an e-reader would increase the times of day I find a second or two to read.  And I've got to say, this sounds nice, considering Baby will probably take away a lot of reading time I have now.

But then I'm still a little resistant!  Books!  I don't want to give them up!

I would want an original Kindle, I think.  That is, not the color Kindle Fire.  (But actually, I don't know which model I would want - the Kindle Touch?  The one with 3G?  The one with a keyboard?)  I feel like at some point, we'll get an iPad, but we don't need to make that investment now.

Any e-readers out there?  What do you think??  Any Kindle owners - and if so, which model would you recommend?

2 comments:

Patricia Clayton said...

To e-read! There is no question. I don't think I'll ever go back, but I do feel a bit of sadness over it. I would say kindle if you want something you can just pull out of your purse at a moment's notice.

LB said...

Sigh. I feel a similar conundrum, although I don't read in short bursts the way you do so I think that advantage wouldn't matter to me. I think it'd be good for the instantaneous purchasing factor (I've missed two book clubs bc it took me too long to get the book), but bad for the train bc I don't want to tempt someone to steal from me!
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