If you had asked me 18 months ago if I’d ever come to love reading e-books, I would have laughed at you and run to my bookcase to embrace my beloved (print) books. But over the past months, as I’ve tried out a bunch of e-readers and learned my way around e-books, I can tell you I’ve started to come around. I won’t ever give up print books, because I think they create an incomparable reading experience, but here are just a few of the reasons that I’ve added e-books to my reading arsenal.
*My traveling life has been revolutionized. I always like to travel with several books, because I worry I either won’t like a book and will need a back up, or that I’ll like my pick so much that I’ll race through it on my first flight and be stuck bookless for the rest of my trip. This used to be a big problem because it’s not easy to tote around multiple books on a getaway. But now, I just load up a few picks from the library’s e-book collection onto a little pink Sony Reader, and I’m set for a trip, whether it’s a few days away or a long vacation with lots of downtime.
*There’s much less arm fatigue. Last month, I was reading a fat novel by Stephen King, which clocked in at a heavy 900 pages. I love the heft and great design of the print edition, but it was so heavy I basically had to rest it on my knees! Slimming it down on an e-reader would have made the reading experience a little more pleasant. An e-reader never changes size or gets heavier no matter how many books are stored on it. For travel, a commute, or just a really fat book, it doesn’t get much better than that.
* You can search with a simple tap. While reading a new biography of Queen Elizabeth II, I happened on an anecdote that I could have sworn already appeared in the book. How was I ever going to find that first instance of the story about the dentures stuck in a sticky bun? Normally I just flip around and can find it, but this book is already fairly repetitive, and I had no idea where to start. On an e-reader, I could simply tap on the word or phrase in question to find the first, and every, mention of it in the book. This is one of the best, and maybe least known, features of e-reading. Whether you’ve forgotten a character’s name or missed the meaning of a word, search makes it incredibly easy to refresh your memory.
*You can get new books, for free, without having to leave the house. A perfect afternoon can go bad very quickly if I finish my book without a back-up on hand. With an e-reader, I can get that next book in minutes with just a few clicks and my library card—without having to leave the house. The library’s e-collection is growing every day, and I’ve found unexpected and wonderful books from just a little extra browsing. The library e-book catalog is at times frustrating, I’ll admit, primarily because many major publishers simply don’t make their e-books available for lending. Do I notice those holes? Sure. But I have also never failed to find an excellent e-book from the library collection.
Will I ever give up print books? Nope. But e-books will definitely become a larger part of what I read. Print- and e-books can, and do, complement each other. Some books, especially zippy thrillers, are great on e-readers. Other books, especially those that are more slowly paced, I’ll probably keep reading in print. Either way, I’m excited to watch my book collection grow, either on the shelf or on a little pink e-reader.