Nik Rawlinson
Falling in love with a digital book just means you’ll want a paper copy, too.
I find myself in a bit of a quandary. It all comes down to books. I’m reading a good book right now. A very good book, as it happens. Or, to be more accurate, I’m reading some pixels that reproduce said book on the screen of my iPhone. It’s not so much a book as a file – in my collection at least.
I bought it, if not on a whim, then without properly thinking things through, and I find myself enjoying it so much that I now want to own its dead-tree equivalent for no other reason than having it on my shelf. That’s a bad thing, I know, and although I could pick up a second-hand copy (the way I buy most of my books) for a pound or so – this being a very old and much-reprinted novel – there’s a little voice inside that’s urging me not to do it.
Like it or not, digital books are the future and this experience has proved it. I opted for the iBooks edition purely and simply because I was heading off on a long train journey without any luggage. I didn’t want to take a book, but I did want something to read. This was the perfect compromise and it’s worked out better than expected, damn it.
It’s proved that the joy of books isn’t what I always thought it was – the feel of the paper, the smell of the pages, the look of the ink on the weave, seeing your library slowly grow on a series of shelves at home – but the story itself, and this story really chugs along. Had I not chosen this particular book, then perhaps I’d have found myself bored, given up and blamed it on the format, but I didn’t, and this morning I put together two words I never thought I would utter in sequence: ‘want’ and ‘Kindle’.
At least three people heard me.
Yes, despite owning an iPhone and a iPad, I still want something less screen-like and more akin to paper, and that’s where the Kindle’s e-ink screen wins through. I like the convenience of electronic books but I like the format of paper books. The Kindle comes closest to giving you both. The iPad, however, for all its brilliance as a portable computer, doesn’t.
And therein lies the rub. Multiple formats, multiple gadgets and an uncertain future. How many of us who have built up a large and prized library at home revel in the fact that wherever we find ourselves two, five, 10, 20 years from now could pick up one of those volumes and, eyesight permitting, re-read our favourite parts? Most of us, I’d say.
You can’t say the same for digital books, which find themselves roughly where music was five years back. Until I know I can read any book on any device at any time in exchange for just one payment I won’t be buying any more… which is a shame, I think. I was really quite enjoying travelling light.
