My Thoughts on E-Books

As I have mentioned several times, I am an English Literature graduate, so have spent many years of my life reading and enjoying books. I own a lot of books – some are battered beyond belief from constant reading, others are annotated to death from school, others I have yet to read. I must have paid hundreds of pounds on books for university alone. But until recently I have had very little to do with E-books. There was one point where I read The Tempest online before a lecture (and my eyes seriously hurt afterwards!). I also found it useful to load up novels online, search for a specific quote, find out which chapter it was in and find it in my copy of the book to reference it properly (seems time-consuming, but much less so than flipping through all the pages). As a student I never really viewed electronic texts as anything other than a practical way to get the information I needed.

I discovered E-books when I got an Android phone, and downloaded the app Aldiko. If you're unfamiliar with it, Aldiko is an app that lets you download books – sometimes at a cost, but many books in the public domain are absolutely free. This gives you access to a whole world of novels at the touch of a button. You can have the complete works of Charles Dickens stored on your phone in a matter of minutes. And even the books you pay for cost less than a book in the shops. The rise in E-books has caused a pretty big divide amongst readers. Some welcome the new technology, others feel it will kill the book industry. Personally, even with the endless supply of novels for free, I would almost always choose to buy a physical book rather than download a virtual one. I have, however, found some uses for E-books.

First of all, my job sometimes requires me to invigilate exams, and anyone who has done this knows just how boring it can get (or depressing, if you actually catch a cheater). So you generally want something to pass the time. It's nice to be able to read a novel instead of sitting and doing nothing, but you need to pay attention to the students – at some point someone will need an extra sheet of paper, or need to be escorted to the toilet. This is where reading on a small screen comes in handy – it's much harder to lose your place in a book when there's barely any text on the screen at one time. You can read in short bursts without reading the same passage over and over again. They are also useful if you lack sufficient light to read normally, such as on a long car ride at night – why should a lack of light prevent us from enjoying a good book?

I've been pretty open-minded towards E-books lately, but to be honest, I don't see myself paying for downloads or buying a Kindle. If I'm going to pay for a book, I would rather buy a physical one than one in digital form. You could argue that I'm a hypocrite, since I've paid to download games from the Playstation Network, but there it's usually to avoid the risk of purchasing a damaged second-hand PSOne disc. A ripped page in a book is a mild inconvenience, while a scratched disc can render the entire game unplayable. There is also a charm to a slightly battered book. I think I still feel the same way about E-books that I used to. I see them as a practical tool for reading when reading a physical book isn't an option. There are however, many people who enjoy E-books, so they definitely have a place in the world.

I think some people are worried that E-books will destroy the simple pleasure of reading. I can see the worry here – in a society that is pretty reliant on technology, it's good to know that we still have a form of entertainment that doesn't have to be plugged in or charged up. If we were to lose this, a power cut would cost us dearly. But I don't think people need to be as scared as E-books as they are. I seriously don't think that people should be looked down upon for choosing to buy a Kindle rather than build up a collection of physical books. Dracula will always be the same text, whether your are reading it electronically or on paper. This new technology has its uses, and if people prefer using an electronic device then there is nothing wrong with this. I don't think physical books are in any danger – practicality isn't always the preferred option, and a list of texts on a screen will never feel as special as a bookcase filled with novels. In the end, if we are all reading great books, who cares how we choose to read them?