On Books

I'll be honest. I'm quite amazed at myself that I haven't done a post relating to books at all yet. Considering I work in a bookstore and I love reading and writing, it seems like an obvious topic for me. Well, let's fix that up then!

I shall add a section for books up the top there, (Have you seen my sections yet? Aren't they fancy?) and probably talk about books I've read or stuff to do with the industry in general. I think I'm going to start with a bit on eBooks.

I think, love them or hate them, eBooks are just going to get bigger and bigger. Amazon keeps pushing their Kindle Reader and devices like the iPad support eBook formats too. It's becoming easier and easier for people to read like this each day.


I don't like them. It's not that I've really got anything against them, they're just not for me. I can see the advantages to them, and I can see why people would want to own one. If you're travelling, carrying a Reader around is easier than a bunch of books. eBooks, I believe, are generally cheaper than a physical book. For students as well, I'd much rather be carrying around a Reader than big massive text books all day.


But, there's just something about reading a book off a screen that doesn't feel right to me. I know they've tried to emulate ink and paper on the readers, but it's still not the same. Given the choice between reading from paper or from a screen, I'd always choose paper.


And what about having a library? A folder full of eBook files is never, ever going to be the same as having a room with shelves and shelves full of books. There's just something special about owning a book that is never going to be matched with an eBook.


I don't see an eBook ever being convenient to flick through either. Books you can easily flick to a certain page you need, and jump back and forth with relative ease. I could be wrong, and correct me if I am, but I'm not sure eBook Readers can match this yet.


The main point is that there's something about books that a file on a Reader isn't going to be able to replace. For that reason, I do hope that the book continues to hang in there for a long, long time. I won't deny that eBooks are going to continue growing, and I agree that there are advantages to them. Heck, it could easily open the doors to make it easier for authors to self publish, which I think could be a really good thing.


For now though, I don't plan on getting an eBook Reader until there's no more alternative. What are your thoughts?