September 30, 2007
It occurred to me that the bibliophiles and geeks among you might be interested in how it is using the eReader I talked about here. Although I just really want to talk about it since I was initially highly resistant to using one.
I was extremely sceptical when David first began mentioning the readers several years ago. I couldn't imagine giving up the feeling of holding a book and turning each page or flipping past several pages at once. And then there's the text. Who wants to read a computer screen? They're bad for your eyes, produce a lot of glare and they just look so fake. And the smell! I love how books smell and plastic just cannot compare to the lightly pulpy smell of paper. Reading is partly a physical pleasure for me and I balked at the idea of giving up any of that joy.
But eventually I stopped arguing because if well-designed, an eReader just makes so much more sense when traveling for extended periods. Of course, I also though the first generation of eReaders would be so expensive we wouldn't be getting one any time soon, anyway. But then I opened my graduation present and there it was. And I love it.
It does, of course, have its flaws. The software was clearly written by computer people and not by book people. I'm hoping the next generation includes a 'search' function and I want a better way of flipping through multiple pages at a time. Also, as the daughter of librarians, I want more ways of ordering my books and selecting them than just alphabetical by title or author, especially since Sony's programmers live in a world where you alphabetize by authors first names. But really, I do love it. With the technology (e-ink) used for the print, I feel as though I'm reading a cheap mass market paperback. The screen isn't back lit the way computer screens are, so the text actually looks like text. I've gotten over not having pages to turn and instead happily push a little silver button, and ultimately, I'm willing to compromise on the smell in order to carry around 327 books in something about as big as a trade paperback. The eReader is a pleasure to read and I am giddy about having so many books so readily available.
