I bought an eReader last week. Weighing in at nearly $250 for the petite device, with a screen that is effectively black and white and has something like a 1 frame-per-second refresh rate*, this was not a decision I rushed into. But the idea for purchasing an eReader has stuck in my mind ever since I read a blog post by Felicia Day about her Kindle two years ago. She wrote:
The first thing I hear from people who see it, which I was totally on board with before I got the Kindle, is “I like to feel the book in my hand”. I have a HUGE bookshelf in my house of paperbacks and signed hardbacks, so I’m a girl who was also skeptical of the idea of a newfangled electronic thing. Isn’t that what the 2-3 hours a day I spend on the internet is for; reading stuff?! Shouldn’t I reserve my pleasure reading to real life? … Evidently I could be persuaded otherwise.
Indeed, I was always firmly in the “but I like books!” camp, and this is still the most common reaction I get when discussing eReaders with my book-reading friends. But I think there are two different questions to consider:
Do you really like reading (and do you want to read more)?
Do you really like owning books (and do you want to own more)?
The answer to the first questions, for me, was most definitely yes. The second? Not so much. Yes, I want to own copies of my favourite books: the books that I want to sigh over in happy nostalgia and re-read obsessively every few years and force pass on to my friends and family. But that paranormal romance that I’m just a little embarrassed to admit I’m interested in? Or that non-fiction book I’d like to read “one day”? Or the classic novels that I should read? Do I want those sitting on my bookshelf for the rest of all time?
Getting with the Digital
Connecting my eReader to my laptop for the first time, I felt a strange mixture of liberation and loss. It was a similar feeling to when, as a wee teen, I first realised I could download music from the internet. That any music I wanted—and more music than I ever wanted—was at my fingertips (the only limitation being our 56k dialup connection!). And that my CD collection, each CD painstakingly decided upon and saved for, was now redundant.
I also felt a little gluttonous, which seems fitting, as I think the main benefit of the eReader is consumption. My eReader will allow me to consume far more books than our physical bookshelves at home would allow. It will also allow me to consume more than my finances would otherwise allow (an average paperback in Australia costs around 20 AUD/USD), thanks to Project Gutenberg and other sources.
Hopefully it will also allow me to read more, and more widely. I have already loaded up my little eReader with two fantasy novels, one NaNoWriMo novel, one non-fiction book, one open source novel, and have high hopes of downloading many, many old classics.
Anyway, it’s early days yet. If only Shelfari had a graph feature, it would be interesting to see how my reading rate is affected over the next few months.
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And just for reference, if anyone’s curious…
Happy nostalgia and obsessive re-reading: Duncton Wood
Paranormal romance: Bitten
Non-fiction: Cosmos
Classic novel: Pride & Prejudice
Two fantasy novels: Dragonriders of Pern
NaNoWriMo novel: Obsidian Throne
Non-fiction (the second): The God Delusion
Open-source novel: Little Brother
Old classics: What Katy Did at School and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
* I really don’t know much about this, but I’m guessing it’s low 
check out www dot manybooks dot net too
What formats does your reader read? we should dropbox our mobi files (if that is primarily what you get)
The Sony Reader reads epub, pdf, mobi, txt, word and rtf.
That sounds great! I’ve only mainly tried epubs and pdfs so far, but I’m sure mobi would be fine too,
Ahh, very curious what you end up thinking of the Sony eReader!
It is very nearly the one I went with because it does support ePub whereas the Kindle does not.
In the end, the Kindle was just too much cheaper to ignore and I’ve been told again and again that Calibre can handle that conversion fairly well.
So far I don’t regret the decision, so *squee* eReaders! I was basically turned by all the same arguments and thoughts you were in the end; seems most adopters at this stage go through a similar thought process.
@Naithin Yes! I didn’t realise that the Kindles were cheaper (or at least competitive, here in Australia) until after I bought my Sony… and I did kick myself a little. Free 3G is a pretty good perk. I do like the slightly smaller form-factor of the Sony Readers, though, so I’m not unhappy.
Will definitely post an update in a few months about how I go with it