E-readers vs books… Delicate subject, I might say? Why so? Because it is kind of delicate for myself.
I love books – I love the smell, the colours of the covers, and the textures of covers/paper inside. There is a lot of work put in book manufacturing – thinking about the design, the type of every cover – should it be matte or varnished? -, the paper used, and weather it should be paperback or hardback. Books are great making a really nice and loved personal collection. You get a feeling looking at your own library, don’t you? Counting endless titles, each of them keeping some beautiful memories between its covers makes you feel safe, peaceful… or am I the only one to feel this way? Anyway, in this era, they become less and less practical. They are big and difficult to carry without damaging them. It becomes even more difficult when you get to think that most people use to read a lot more outside the house – and I’m not even talking about holiday reading. I am talking about people reading in their break at school, job, on their way to where they need to be. Carrying a book after me is not actually a difficult or unpleasant task. I dislike doing this because I care too much about the books themselves to get them damaged. This is why I got a Kindle.
Kindle made a huge difference in my life as a reader. It made me not buy books anymore – it is way easier simply getting them on as a digital edition. It helps me in a lot of situations. I am working night-shifts, traveling from town to town. I am not driving so I have plenty of hours of reading in the car, while it’s dark outside. This is where the Kindle really comes in handy. Also, not buying so many books anymore is just a good thing for me – I am a student, living in a shared house, I simply can’t transport the books from place to place so easy. I have over 400 books at my parents’ house – I couldn’t take any with me in England. The fact is that I actually moved in another house recently and the most difficult things to transport were those 50 books I have here.
The Kindle saves me from all of that, but I feel like I miss something. I feel like there should be that feeling I get when looking at my home library – hundreds of books keeping my childhood memories in them. There is no other feeling as warm as that. It is just like smelling the first fragrance you ever had and loved so much, and you can’t help but thinking about the memories you had around that smell. I feel horrible about having to miss this. The Kindle is not giving me this. It is not giving me those moments in which I simply study the cover and feel the weight of the book. Maybe I am just strange doing this at all but this way each book I have gets a bit of more personal meaning.
