Gutenberg vs. Bezos, Part III

In recent posts, I was debating whether to stick with conventional paper books or get an e-reader.  My internal debate rages on.

The Boy and I were sitting down to stream Parks and Recreation on Netflix.  It was taking forever to load and we had to reboot my computer.  The Boy said, "I hate the internet!  Books never crash!"

Books never crash.  I love it.  Recently, his Kindle ran out of charge and he couldn't read it before he went to bed.

Point: Gutenberg

I read Gone Girl entirely on my iPad.  This was the first book I've ever read entirely in the digital format, and I survived.  I even enjoyed the book.  I brought it to my daughter's track meet and read it in the sun before the races started.  It was fine even in portable mode.  It never crashed.  Reading this book on an e-reader was not a fail.

Point: Bezos and/or Jobs

Now I am reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.  This is the nicest book I've ever read.  As Linda Richman says, this book is like butter.  It has the softest, thickest, creamiest paper I've ever seen in a hardback.  I collect stationery and I don't have stationery this nice.  I want to rub my cheek against the pages.  I can't say that about the iPad or Kindle.  I am afraid to read The Goldfinch at the dinner room table for fear of sullying it.  The book probably weighs three pounds, and I don't care.  I feel bad for people who will wait to get this in paperback.  They will miss out.  The book itself is a thing of beauty.  It's like the publishers went all out to say "Ebooks?  Whatever.  This is how REAL books are made."

Point: Gutenberg

Gutenberg vs. Bezos, Part II

Like Dorothy wearing her ruby slippers in Oz, I've had the power with me all along.  I ran into a friend who showed me how to use an e-reader app (Nook, Kindle, iBooks, etc.) on my iPad without the glowing white screen that I fear will cause my eyes to fail someday in my old age.

"You switch it so the background is black and the words are white," she said.  "It is great.  My Nook crashed so now I just use the Nook app on my iPad."  Brilliant.  I tried it with Pride and Prejudice, and it works.

So I don't need a Kindle since I already own an iPad.  The earth will thank me for not adding yet another digital device to my family's swelling arsenal.  Will I use this new found power for good, not evil?

Before I discuss that, I asked my friend how I could separate my Kindle books from my son's.  John registered the Boy's Kindle under my Amazon account. 

"So you don't want him perusing your copy of Fifty Shades of Orange?"

Exactly.  No.  Wait.  I was thinking more about Gone Girl, a psychological thriller.  (Am I the only middle age woman on the planet who hasn't read anything in Fifty Shades?)  She said to get him his own Amazon account so I can keep my reading private.

"You know it takes place in Seattle," she said.  Interesting.  I'd love for Mr. Orange to run into Bernadette.  That would be awesome.

Which begs another question: Is Fifty Shades success due to the e-reader?  Was this a book that people can discreetly download and read while reading the bus or in their living room and no one can see what it is?  I think so.  Like the internet exploded the porn industry, ditto to Fifty Shades and the Kindle.

Back to using my iPad e-reader for good and not evil.  I'll have to think of it in the same terms of my use of iTunes.  With iTunes, I am buying and enjoying music that I otherwise wouldn't have.  Even if it ends up being small change, it is money that the artist might not otherwise have gotten.  So I rationalize:  these are books that I otherwise might not get from the library or a bookstore.  I will still love the library and my neighborhood bookstores, and my bookshelves will thank me.

I just downloaded Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn from iBooks for $8.99.  It looks like Steven Jobs won this round.

Gutenberg vs. Bezos

My birthday is tomorrow, which makes today the last day I am closer to 40 than I am to 50.  This morning, my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  I had thought of getting a Liberty puzzle,* which I so love, or a Kindle.**  The new batch of Liberty puzzles have not yet arrived at Card Kingdom,*** so I will have wait for that.

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.

1. 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.
2. I am running out of room in my house to store books I've bought.  
3. 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.)

Here is a picture of the four stacks of books next to my bed.  They are next to my bed because I like to read before I go sleep and when I wake up.

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.