Many people use e-books now. My dad has a Kindle. One of my friends has a Nook. But me? I still prefer an old fashioned, hold in your hands, read cover to cover book. Why? Here are ten of my reasons:
- Real books can be used as weapons. If you clonk someone over the head with War and Peace, you can knock them out! Can’t do that with a Kindle or Nook.
- If you lose a real book, it’s not so big a deal, it’s just one book. If you lose your e-book reader, you’ve lost your whole library.
- Real books can be used as doorstops.
- Real books have a homey, comfortable feel to them. Not so much with e-books.
- It’s much easier to flip back to a chapter you’ve already read in a real book.
- I don’t know about you, but I like to hug my books sometimes. And real books are much more fun to hug than e-books.
- Browsing a library or bookstore, actually walking among the shelves and seeing books you’d never have thought to search for, is more fun and opens your mind more than browsing an internet store.
- You can lend books to other people as easily as handing it to them. It’s much, much harder to lend an e-book.
- I have a beautiful bookcase full of lovely, colorful books in my room. If I only used e-books, there would be no bookcase and no lovely books.
- The act of reading a book is something that people have been doing for more than 200 years. The act of reading an e-book is something that people have been doing for 2 years.
So that’s why I prefer real books over e-books.
My mom and I were talking about this the other day. In the end we decided we preferred the homey feel of real books. Then there's the whole lending thing. I don't know what I'd do if my friends and I weren't able to lend books to each other. Finally, I spend enough time looking at glowing plastic as it is. My eyes would get so sore from reading an ebook. The only thing ebooks have going for them is the price. You have to admit, 99 cent current books are tempting.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think my favorite reason is number one.
Haha, mine too!
ReplyDeleteAnd that glowing plastic reason of yours is a good one, I should have thought of that...
BUT... the portability of e-books is a big plus. I had to fly on an airplane recently and I was able to bring four "thick" books with me that I wanted to read, all neatly loaded on my little ole' Kindle. I like that part.
ReplyDeleteWell, yes, there are pluses to having e-books, and that's one of them, but for me the minuses outweigh the pluses. 'Specially since I don't travel too much. :-)
ReplyDeleteDon - I think I'd be to afraid I'd lose an ebook to take it somewhere! I accidentally leave real books and diaries places often enough as it is. I've had a camera stolen because I turned my back on it for five minutes - don't want that happening to an ebook!
ReplyDeleteThere should be ebook insurance. LOL.
Real books can:
ReplyDeleteProp up a wobbly table leg;
Be ripped up and stuffed under your clothes to use as insulation in unexpected arctic conditions;
Be burned in case of afore-mentioned arctic threats, or just because you find them highly objectionable;
Be annotated in one's own handwriting and with one's own emphasis (can't express this in type, of course, but with script you can scribble, or write neat and tiny, or large and joyful);
Be invitingly propped open;
Be sought out in a dusty, under-noticed corner of a used bookstore, smelling musty and dusty and decades-unwanted, until they open to surrender their treasures, leaving the finder with a sense of pride in discovery;
Draw one in by their color, odor, distinctive font, lovely pictures/lithographs/frontispieces/illustrations;
Be riffled;
Be allowed to fall open at random, giving the reader a sense of surprise and serendipity;
I could go on...
Wow, Mom, I should have gotten your help with this! That's 9 more reasons! :D
ReplyDeletegood points, but i wanted to say some stuff. haha. But if you lose your e-reader you dont lose your whole library. Your books are stored on your account so you can read your books anywere, on your phone, on your laptop, or anything that has wifi. Also e-books have free 3g, so you have acces to the whole barnes and nobel book store wenever and werever. So you can look at and buy a book anywere you are. You also can get a free sample of books to read to see if you like them before you buy them. but i do agree that regular books are still nice to have. They are useful in many more ways. haha
ReplyDeleteeBooks take longer to download than it takes to open a real book.
ReplyDeleteIt's impossible to read a Kindle in bright sunlight.
You can check out books at the library, which is much more fun than checking out eBooks online.