www.wiffli.com

by Jason Edwards

So far I’ve read about 7 books on my iPod Touch, via an app from Barnes & Noble. And I have to tell you, that’s 7 more than I would have read, all things considered. This despite the books being, mostly, titles I wanted to read. The thing is, I’ve adapted into a lifestyle where sitting down with a book and flipping pages just doesn’t happen. If I have that kind of free time, I’m inclined, usually, to play video games. Maybe that’s shameful, but that’s the way it is. So having the convenience of a book literally in my pocket has proven to be a boon.

With the Kindle and the Nook and Sony’s device, you need ambient light to read, but with my iPod touch and the apps I use, I can read in the dark, which is where I get a lot of reading done—in bed, before I go to sleep. And the apps I use allow me to download—for free—samples of books. Usually the first few chapters. That’s huge—I can get “into” a book before I decide to pay for it, something I usually don’t do sitting in the chairs at a bookstore.

If I have a spare minute, or 10 spare minutes, I can get several pages read. The e-reader remembers my place, so I don’t have to remember to use a bookmark. And while I’m reading I can highlight words and look them up in the dictionary, or in Google if it’s a cultural reference, right there on the same device I’m reading on. I can highlight sections, take notes, and whenever I want to I can compile the notes and e-mail them to myself—no need to carry a highlighter, a pencil, and then flip pages to bring my notes together. And I can search the text as well—a scatterbrain like me sometimes forgets who a character is, so I can search for his name, go back to where he was introduced, and have my memory refreshed.

So maybe now you’re thinking: “Yeah, e-readers are great for unorganized, lazy, forgetful people.” But the point here is that e-reader allows someone who loves to read to keep reading. And that’s the key. It’s a tool to help me do something I love. I’ve heard people say “but I like the feel and heft of a real book. I like the pages and the paper and the whole experience. I could never have that with an e-reader.” Fair enough—but that’s not, strictly speaking, reading. That’s book-loving. Nothing wrong with book-loving. But a true hard-core reader is going to do what it takes to read, as opposed to just love on some artifact of reading.

And maybe I’m biased, because I’m not a book-lover. I have books I love, but mostly I try to get rid of ‘em as soon as I’ve read ‘em. They take up space. They pile up, and when you have to move, they break your back. I like libraries for this reason, but I am lazy, and I am impatient, and either the library is far away or they don’t have the title I want to read, yet.

Which takes us back to buying books. Right now, of course, there are orders of magnitude more books available in print than in e-format. But those are mostly older books, and when I do want to buy a new book, the e-books are cheaper. You’ve heard that Amazon bowed to MacMillan and is raising the price of e-books from 10 bucks to 15 or so. That’s still cheaper than a new hard-back. No standing in line. No getting to the bookstore after they sell the last copy. No waiting for UPS to bring my Amazon delivery.

Some people point out that real books don’t need batteries—I guess I’m swapping the forthought of having brought a book along with the forethought of keeping my device charged. But I keep it charged anyway, because it’s also my music player, game player, PDA, etc. And so far, I’ve never found myself wanting to read for the hours it takes to run the battery all the way down.

Probably the one thing that real books have over e-books is permanence, which I alluded to before, in terms of getting read of weighty tomes when I’m done with them. That’s the one thing you can’t do with an e-book: loan it to a friend. (Yes, the Nook has a limited loan functionality: one title at a time, for two weeks, and that’s it—you can never loan that book again. No thanks—that doesn’t count as loaning). For this reason, and this reason alone, I’m pretty sure is never going to die—at least not at the hand of e-books. So never fear real-book lovers. You can still engage in your fetish.

Me, though, I’m eschewing the albatross and getting some reading done.