Recently, I was out
and about reading my Kindle when someone asked me how I liked it. I
enthusiastically replied that I liked it quite a bit, much more than I thought
I would. The person shook their head and said, “But there’s something about the
feel of a book.”
I don’t disagree, but here’s the
thing; the revolution will happen whether we want it to or not. How many of us
out there said we’d never buy a Blackberry, iPod or DVD player? Can you imagine
still sitting in your house with a beeper, Sony Discman and a VCR?
Well, when I decided I would be uploading my books to Kindle, I pretty much had to get with the program and buy one. And I’m glad I did. I can check out books from the public library, download audio books, magazines and newspapers. When I signed up for Joy Fielding’s class, we were all instructed to read three of her books beforehand, as they would be discussed. I already owned two of them, but couldn’t find the third at any of the four bookstores I went to (not even at the library). Rather than put it on special order, I bought the eBook version from the comfort of my couch.
I certainly never thought I’d buy a
Kindle. I was a book person dammit! I worked in a bookstore for over five years
and my bookshelves are crammed with more books than I’ll read in this lifetime
or the next. I believed in the purity and sanctity of the paper page and
there’d be no prying books out of my cold, dead fingers.
Well, when I decided I would be uploading my books to Kindle, I pretty much had to get with the program and buy one. And I’m glad I did. I can check out books from the public library, download audio books, magazines and newspapers. When I signed up for Joy Fielding’s class, we were all instructed to read three of her books beforehand, as they would be discussed. I already owned two of them, but couldn’t find the third at any of the four bookstores I went to (not even at the library). Rather than put it on special order, I bought the eBook version from the comfort of my couch.
Easy breezy.
The fact is, I still buy physical
books. Quite a few of them. In the past three months alone, I’ve purchased Andy
Cohen’s “Most Talkative,” “Skinnydipping” by Bethenny Frankel, Gillian Flynn’s
“Gone Girl,” and over the weekend, I happened upon a rare books dealer where I
purchased a perfectly trashy-sounding book from 1966 called “Doctors’ Wives”
that I look forward to toting to the beach.
I’ll still ask my family for books as gifts for Christmas and Birthdays. I’ll
still reread my paperback copies of “Catcher in the Rye” and “Their Eyes Were
Watching God,” as I’ve done several times over the years. But the truth is,
technology is inevitable, as we’ve seen in virtually every other aspect of
entertainment. The train is speeding down the track and we can either get on or
let it pass us by. Books are the last frontier to be conquered by technology.
Just think—in the next 20 years,
people might be saying, “But there’s something about the feel of a Kindle.”
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