Tag Archives: e-readers

E-Gads, Part II

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booksI was at the gym the other day, walking fast on the treadmill and totally absorbed in I am Pilgrim (a book I will review at a later date). Suddenly I realized there was someone leaning on my treadmill, and I had to come back to real life (not easy to do from the terrifying life I was living from being so caught up in I am Pilgrim). I was reading on my Ipad.

It was a 70-something woman trying to catch my attention.

“I see you here at the gym all the time,” she said, “and I notice you are always reading from your Ipad.”

She went on to tell me that she has a new Ipad which she is struggling to learn to use. She began questioning me about reading from this unfamiliar device.

Do you like it? Is it expensive? Where do you get your books?

I told her I read almost exclusively from my Ipad, having both Kindle and Nook apps loaded. I further explained that it could, of course, be expensive, though an electronic new release book is substantially less expensive than a full-price (read, non-Costco) hard cover book.

“But I get a lot of my books from the library,” I told her.

She asked me lots of questions about library e-books, and I tried to answer them, but suggested she visit her local library to get really good answers from the librarians instead of my probably largely incorrect answers.

You see, once Bill gave me a Nook for Christmas, I was hooked. Being a voracious reader, it gives me great pleasure to know that right there on that contraption I am holding in my hot little hand, I have book after book at the ready. Surprisingly, I get as much satisfaction from that as I always got from looking at a stack of books on my dresser.

I KNOW. I can’t believe it either.

I know all of the downfalls of reading electronically. You probably shouldn’t take it down to the beach or the swimming pool. When I have to leave my treadmill to, well, you know, I have to ask Bill to watch my Ipad so it doesn’t get stolen. No one would be interested in my tattered books. There have been stories as of late that the backlighting from books on the Ipad may cause sleeplessness. Perhaps most disappointing of all, you can’t share books with others as you can paper books.

And most creepy, someone (Jeff Bezos? Larry Page? Sergey Brin? Homeland Security? Barack Obama?) keeps track of what I’m reading. And what I’m highlighting. I know this because when I’m reading a library e-book, the book will tell me how many other people have highlighted that same section. Please don’t tell me that. It creeps me out.

But the fact that Google knows where I am all of the time and has a good idea of all of my interests and activities is something I’m simply becoming used to. And Them (whoever “Them” are) knowing what I read isn’t terribly problematic unless I’m reading porn or how to build a nuclear device in my basement. Which I’m not.  And I am waiting for my phone call from Homeland Security any minute since they undoubtedly read Nana’s Whimsies.

But despite any downsides, there is one thing about reading an e-book that I love most of all and is the main reason I will continue reading them until there is proof positive that if you read e-books long enough, you’re eyeballs shrivel up and fall out of your head. I love the feature that allows me immediate access to definitions and Wikipedia. I probably use that feature 20 or 30 times in each and every book I read. There is always something I don’t understand, and heaven knows there are always words for which I don’t know the meaning.

And someday I will tell you about me and my love affair with Wikipedia.

So, do you read on e-readers or are you a faithful paper book reader?

E-Gads, Part I

Posted in Whimsies by

blurry ipadWhen Bill and I took our three month tour of Europe back in 2008, one of my biggest concerns was just how I was going to have access to books for the entire trip. I read A LOT! Probably at least a book a week.

I packed up a box of books and sent it to the hotel in Galveston, TX, where we stayed the night before we got on the cruise ship that took us over to Barcelona where our adventure began. Even though I didn’t pack a single hard cover book, it still weighed a LOT. My idea was that I would consider the books to be dispensable. That meant as I was reading them, I would tear out and dispose of the pages I’d already read, thereby making the box increasingly lighter.

Except I found I simply couldn’t destroy a book.

So I went to Plan B. I would simply leave books behind when I’d finished them. Perhaps a hotel staff person could read English and would take the books. Or, if there was a used book store, I would take them there.

That didn’t work either. I did manage to leave some books behind. However, in fear of running out of reading material, any time I came across a bookstore that sold English language books, I bought a couple. Or I would read the book and like it so much that I simply couldn’t leave it behind (because heaven forbid I would purchase a second copy when I got home).

Right before we left on our trip, Amazon began presenting a new-fangled contraption called a Kindle. Despite being a technological neophyte who clings to 19th Century inventions, I could full-out see the advantage this so-called Kindle could have for our trip. They were expensive (as new technology always is), but the price didn’t matter. What did matter, however, was that they were so popular that they were on back order and I wouldn’t be able to acquire one for several months. Too late for my purposes.

So, as I said above, I packed the box of books. And at each stop on our tour – and we saw a lot of things and spent time in a lot of different places – Bill would have to haul out that box of books to carry into our hotel. God bless my husband. He never complained.

We no sooner got home, however, than Bill – who embraces any new technology – got his first e-reader, a Sony, I think. It was rudimentary. Difficult to load books, no back lighting thereby often requiring a book light to read, not a lot of memory. I, on the other hand, clung to my paper books. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t self-righteous about it. But on the occasions when he would be trying to find his place in the book (remember, it was rudimentary), I would say, “Look, Bill. Here’s my bookmark,” as I quickly opened the book to my place. It was flat-out hilarious as you can imagine. His sides hurt from laughing.

But then people besides my technology-loving husband began buying e-readers. Jen, for instance. What’s more, she was loving it.

Again, I tried really hard to not be self-righteous. To each his/her own, I told myself. I simply couldn’t imaging not reading a paper book. And being a serious Library user, I couldn’t imagine not borrowing books from the library for free. Seriously? You pay for every book?

And then Bill bought me a Nook for Christmas. I think it might have been 2011.

I loved it immediately. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you why.