I am vexed about making this leap into the next technology for books. The Boy got a Kindle for his birthday, and Daughter has a Nook from Barnes & Noble. I have several friends who were early adopters of the Kindle, and they love it. I am worried that I will contribute to the demise of the printed word, and subsequently, the demise of libraries and bookstores.
I love bookstores and libraries. I like looking at the tables with new releases with beautiful covers and the branch favorites bookshelf at the library. I like the handwritten reviews on notecards written by the staff at the shops. In the case of the U Bookstore kids section, reviews are written by kids, including one by my daughter.
The Boy has a Paperwhite, which is easy on the eyes. I have the Kindle app on my iPad, but I don't find it comfortable to read for a long period of time on the glowing screen. As I am getting older, I am starting to take things like eye strain more seriously.
(Sidebar: Can someone in the tech world please make a computer/word processor with this technology like Paperwhite so I can type without have to look at a glowing screen all day? I can get another device to watch Netflix or check FB. Or would I be the only person to buy this?)
Back to the question: Should I get a Kindle? Someone did a study somewhere that showed that people who read on e-reading devices read more than people who don't. I can see why. I have a list of several books I have been wanting to read, and I could download them in a matter of minutes with an e-reader. Instead, I order them from the Seattle Public Library. Some other study showed that SPL is one of the most used libraries in the country. The downside of these bragging rights is that I was 900 or something to get David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. My friend in Park Ridge, Illinois walked into her library and picked it up off the shelf weeks after it came out. I thought we could discuss the book, but by time I got it six months later, she forgot what it was about. A group of friends recommended Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I am number 92. I was going to reserve Where'd You Go, Bernadette from the library. I decided to buy it when I was 1,007th in line. My patience has its limits.
I could buy books like Gone Girl, I suppose. I have bought lots of books, and favorite bookstore are the Ravenna Third Place and University Bookstore. I have three problems with buying books.
- They cost a decent amount of money, given how much I read. The library is a very reasonable option, even if I have to wait.
- I am running out of room in my house to store books I've bought.
- I have so many books and I don't know what I own. When I lived in Chicago, I bought a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I bought a copy when I lived in St. Louis. I didn't figure this out until I moved to Seattle and found two copies while I was unpacking. I recently gave one copy away, and now can't find the second one. Argh. (First World Problem, I know.)
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| I also love the little post-it-note page flags and bookmarks. |
I started with one stack, then somehow ended up with four when I ran out of space on my bookshelves. I feel like an archeologist digging through these stacks. That anthology on Alzheimer's buried beneath four books, so that must have been purchased in March 2014.
While a Kindle would mean I would be able to escape my bed if there were a fire in my house, I worry I might go crazy with clicks and drop $30 a week on books. I told John this, and he asked if I drink in bars every week.
No.
"Some people drop $30 a week in bars. Buying books online probably costs the same and has to be healthier."
True.
I say this as I listen to "Bizarre Love Triangle" by New Order which I purchased on iTunes. I know iTunes and downloading MP3s hurt record shops. But I rarely shopped in music stores before they became extinct. My iTunes purchases are gravy for the music industry as this is music that otherwise would not have purchased. While I feel sad music stores are extinct, I do not feel as I contributed to their demise.
So I am torn. To summarize: I am too cheap to buy lots of books, yet waiting six months or more to read the latest Malcolm Gladwell gets old. If I do decide to splurge and buy books, I have no place to put them. If I get an e-reader, I feel like I might make bookstores and libraries obsolete, which would be bad.
My budget could handle buying ebooks, considering I don't drinks Appletini's or some other fancy cocktails at bars. Yet, I feel like if I were get an e-reader I am changing the world. Should I enter the new world? Did people vex when Gutenberg made his Bible? Did they shun it, and only read Bibles written by scribes? I kind of doubt it. My kids have e-readers now, and this is their world. Should it be mine?
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* I am not shilling for Liberty puzzles. I just like them a lot.
** Not shilling for Kindle, either.
*** Ditto. Birthdays bring out the consumer in me. Oy.
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