[30Days]: E-Readers!
I have a Kindle! I have been promising people (namely 
shanaqui, gosh, sorry) to talk about it, and I do want to talk about it, because I think it's pretty cool. But in typical Sev fashion, this is going to become a long and rambling post about reading, too, so that when I get to the (long and rambling) part about my e-reader you guys can better understand the context with which I come at it.
So!
ME, AND READING: A HISTORY.
I learned to read at some absurdly young age, like 2 or 3. I know this because I got my first pair of glasses at 3 (shut up) and my mother had to go through special testing/approval for me to GET glasses because I was too young to qualify for a "normal" vision test - the eye doctor didn't actually believe that I knew my letters. (The early reading also helped tip my parents off to the fact that I might need glasses in the first place, which was helpful.) Of course I don't remember it, but I know the timeline.
I'm told that it was actually a pretty obnoxious habit, because if there was anything around me, I would read it, to the tune of ignoring lots of the other things going on around me. Cereal boxes. List of ingredients. Receipts. Magazines. JCPenney ads. The newspaper. My mother's (adult) novels. If there were words, my eyes were on them, and my parents used to have to clean the whole table to get me to pay attention to things. I would stay up until bizarre hours of the night reading books. I ate books like food. I. Read. A. Lot.
I am also a fast reader. I have always been a fast reader. I can read a Dresden Files book in a couple of hours (given a couple of hours - a rare occurence, yes, which is why I usually take a few days overall to stumble through them). Often it backfires on me, because if I get excited about a book (which I do) I'll read it so fast I finish it almost too quickly, and then I'll end up going back and reading it a second time. (Speaking of Dresden books, I did this with Changes.)
Which brings up another point - I'm a re-reader. I know some people just don't believe in re-reading books: once you've read it, you know what happens, right? So why re-read it? Um. I've read Sunshine probably 50 times. I can quote parts of that book. And every time I read it, I enjoy it. Knowing what happens doesn't "ruin" a story for me; I can still enjoy the language, the characters, the tale itself.
Anyway. I read a lot when I was in school, growing up. But when I went to college, I stopped reading books so much for fun, for a couple reasons:
And when I graduated and came to the real world, it was much the same. I had found a new and different combination of BUSY+LAZY which resulted in the same thing, not going to the library. I had money to buy some books if I wanted, but that required either (a) going to a store (see BUSY/LAZY OTP) or (b) trolling Amazon to find books I was interested in, which was hard. By not reading, I'd lost my knowledge of books and series and authors I would actually be interested in? If that makes sense.
Plus, again, I had fanfiction. And that sounds silly, but there are a lot of good authors out there (buried in mediocrity, yes, but they're there) and reading fanfic could at least satisfy my urges to read when I wasn't in the mood to go through Spindle's End for the 400th time. I was reading stories and learning about them and learning how to write, which is ALSO good. I had just abandoned books.
What I Like About My Kindle
So basically my Kindle was what got me reading again.
I had shown, in my life, a complete and terrible inability to get mine ass to a library in anything resembling a timely fashion. I had also shown that I didn't go to bookstores basically ever, and that I'd really only buy things off of [Amazon, or other online bookstore] if they were FORCEFULLY recommended to me by someone, and even then it was like fffff. I'll do it. Sometime. People sent me books, and I read them and flailed, but getting them myself? It was pretty. major. fail. The only time I would seriously read would be over the vacation/trips Jeff and I would take, and that would be me at the library, half-heartedly selecting a bunch of fantasy books I didn't recognizing and hoping the 7 or so I picked would be alright. Meh, I said.
And then I got a Kindle for Christmas!
For me, it is like MAGIC: BOOKS. ON DEMAND. WHEN I WANT THEM.
I have called this section "Things I Like About my Kindle" because that is exactly what I want to talk about, what I personally like about the Kindle.
I love that it is hooked up directly to a store, which is linked to my Amazon.com account and thus credit card, which means that all I have to do is search the store for a book, click "BUY", and the Kindle version will appear on the screen in a matter of seconds for my immediate enjoyment. I don't have to connect it to a computer and load books; it does that FOR me.
I love that Amazon offers a Kindle discount, because I think that's fair; I also like that some books are offered for free, although I haven't yet really dabbled in that.
I find my Kindle very readable. The smallest or second-smallest test will work for me in normal settings, and I find it no more obnoxious to press a "Next Page" button as I might to turn a page or scroll a mouse. Yes, I have taken it to the beach (in a case) and it was perfectly readable there, too. I've also had opportunity to use the larger test sizes, in two different sorts of settings - (a) when running on the treadmill at the gym, which makes close-object focusing difficult; and (b) when wearing my contact lenses, which means my eyes are not 100% corrected. (this will actually appear later in this meme, but my vision is kind of non-correctable with contacts; I can get anywhere from 60%-90% depending on the day, my blood sugar, and the light in the room.)
In both cases I found the larger test just as clear and readable as print, and I also really liked having one device that could switch text size (rather than buying a large-print book or something).
I haven't used this very much, but the Kindle also will connect to the internet - it's kind of hidden in my version, but I think newer versions make it more easily find-able? Either way, I was able to browse the AO3 for some Criminal Minds fanfic, on my Kindle, and that was pretty awesome.
I LOVE the fact that I can purchase a bajillion books onto it and it will NEVER take up any more space than it does in its nice neat leather case. Being as fast of a reader as I am, I seriously would take 7 books on a 1-week vacation: one for each day. And when you're pulling from the library, it means sometimes you have to take hardcovers, and then you lose that space in your suitcase. So for me, I love that I can stack all the books I might need onto the Kindle. If I run out, I can purchase another book, immediately. ADDITIONALLY, since it is connected to my Amazon.com account, people can buy books FOR ME and they'll appear on my Kindle. (People can buy me paperbacks, too, I don't mind; I'm just saying.)
It also helps the books/clutter around my house: I can buy paperback/hardcover copies of books I loved and want to have on hand (if I decide to spend additional money!) but I don't have a shelf full of "Books I Read That Were Meh."
The number of books I've read in 2010 is probably higher than the number of books I read from 2005-2009. This is directly related to the possession of my Kindle.
What I think about the Kindle in general or for others
I am thrilled with my Kindle! Personally, for me, it is a wicked awesome solution. However! I am not everyone. So I feel like I should address this!
The first thing that comes to mind is that you have to buy the books from Amazon. I'll split that up: you have to (a) buy the books (b) from Amazon. (a) is an issue for people who don't have the disposable income to buy all of their books; I'm admittedly lucky that I can afford to purchase a couple books a month if I so choose. Amazon does give a discount; normally it's about 20%: I've seen higher on some random books, but I don't know how they sort out that system.
And because it's an e-book, you can't then give it to a friend, or donate it to the library, or sell it at a book swap: that money is spent, and it's spent on the copy on your e-reader. I know not everyone has the privilege of disposable income.
It also means that by default you are supporting Amazon. I haven't been able to look into whether or not you can purchase or obtain books from other sources (sorry,
shanaqui ._. ) -- I have not tried.
(In fact, I should put this here: I haven't tried to 'hack' my Kindle at all. All of the books on it have been legally purchased from Amazon.com; I haven't made any attempts to load other books on there, or direct it to other websites, or even to put my books on the computer or some other source. I kind of haven't had the time (or when I did I didn't think of my Kindle). I'm not much of a technology 'hacker' anyway; I use stuff mostly the way it was meant to be used like a boring old boringguy.)
(I've also never used any other brand of ereader, so I can't do a comparison of KINDLE VS [WHATEVER]; it was a gift, so I'm not even sure what process of elimination went into the choosing of it, sadly. I am an uninformed customer in those terms.)
The one downside that's saddest to me is that these are electronic copies of the book, so, like I said - you can't lend it to a friend if you read something amazing. You can't flip through the book until you get to THAT PART that you liked so much (or, you can, but you kind of have to electronically 'eyeball' the page number or chapter and then click a lot of 'next page' buttons). And that's a direct result of something I love about it - its small size and paper-saving ability - so I am conflicted.
I think its strength depends on the way that you read and get books, honestly. For someone like me, the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. For someone who loves the library or can't afford the purchases, it probably would not work nearly as well. For someone who doesn't need portability, that entire side of it might not even register.
And some thoughts on e-readers as a whole
I like that e-readers exist. There, I said it. I like it. I do. I'm not sure if it means "print is dead" or "publishing is dead" or "Amazon will rule the world" or whatever - I am severely uninformed, ok? But I like that they exist.
I'm not sure why people might have an aversion to them, either; like I said, I'm not too informed, so if somehow I am cutting in on an author's cut of profits by using one, well, shame on me :( -- but you'd think with an electronic copy there's less paper/printing/other expense and an author might deserve a higher return, no? And it is still a thing that must be charged and plugged in, and for some people it will never replace an actual book - but I think that's okay?
(
shanaqui mentioned her mother and vision; not only is this close to my own heart and my own limited eyesight, but we will probably buy a Kindle for my grandmother, whose vision is deteriorating. I love that she will still be able to read, which she loves, and that we can surprise her with new books any time we want to.)
Are they perfect? Of course not. Are they gimmicky? Maybe.
I love books, right, but I love stories, not just the physical paper incarnations of them. It's awesome that I can go home and download Robin McKinley's Pegasus or Bujold's Cryoburn (when they come out) and it will be there before I'm done with dinner. Maybe that's a true sign of my laziness, but I embrace it?
I hope no one ever tells me I'm a terrible person for having an e-reader (uh, if you were going to comment and say that, I guess you still can? it might make for an interesting experience!) - for me, personally, individually, it is definitely the thing that has had me return to the world of books and stories, and I'm not entirely sure how that is a bad thing.
This is part of my 30 Days of Posting meme - feel free to check out the schedule of posting and contribute if there are any spaces! DW || LJ
This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/34695.html, which has
comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.
shanaqui, gosh, sorry) to talk about it, and I do want to talk about it, because I think it's pretty cool. But in typical Sev fashion, this is going to become a long and rambling post about reading, too, so that when I get to the (long and rambling) part about my e-reader you guys can better understand the context with which I come at it.
So!
ME, AND READING: A HISTORY.
I learned to read at some absurdly young age, like 2 or 3. I know this because I got my first pair of glasses at 3 (shut up) and my mother had to go through special testing/approval for me to GET glasses because I was too young to qualify for a "normal" vision test - the eye doctor didn't actually believe that I knew my letters. (The early reading also helped tip my parents off to the fact that I might need glasses in the first place, which was helpful.) Of course I don't remember it, but I know the timeline.
I'm told that it was actually a pretty obnoxious habit, because if there was anything around me, I would read it, to the tune of ignoring lots of the other things going on around me. Cereal boxes. List of ingredients. Receipts. Magazines. JCPenney ads. The newspaper. My mother's (adult) novels. If there were words, my eyes were on them, and my parents used to have to clean the whole table to get me to pay attention to things. I would stay up until bizarre hours of the night reading books. I ate books like food. I. Read. A. Lot.
I am also a fast reader. I have always been a fast reader. I can read a Dresden Files book in a couple of hours (given a couple of hours - a rare occurence, yes, which is why I usually take a few days overall to stumble through them). Often it backfires on me, because if I get excited about a book (which I do) I'll read it so fast I finish it almost too quickly, and then I'll end up going back and reading it a second time. (Speaking of Dresden books, I did this with Changes.)
Which brings up another point - I'm a re-reader. I know some people just don't believe in re-reading books: once you've read it, you know what happens, right? So why re-read it? Um. I've read Sunshine probably 50 times. I can quote parts of that book. And every time I read it, I enjoy it. Knowing what happens doesn't "ruin" a story for me; I can still enjoy the language, the characters, the tale itself.
Anyway. I read a lot when I was in school, growing up. But when I went to college, I stopped reading books so much for fun, for a couple reasons:
- Chemical Engineering was a lot of work and had a pretty high workload attached to it. Free time was limited. When I did have it, I read some, but I also liked to go decompress or socialize or something.
- I didn't have a car to get to a library, and I mentally associated the university's library with HOMEWORK and never really looked for reading material there (until senior year when I found out I'd been right and they didn't have a ton). And I was too broke to buy "FUN" books. Chemistry textbooks are fucking expensive, bro.
- Our dorm rooms were TINY. I could barely fit all of my CLASS-RELATED textbooks into the room, let alone fun/recreational reading. I wish I were joking but I'm not, I looked it up once, they were some of the smallest dorm rooms basically ever.
- Computers and the Internet were just getting big (remember I'm a bit older than most of you). There were a lot of new things to do online. Also, I discovered fanfiction.
And when I graduated and came to the real world, it was much the same. I had found a new and different combination of BUSY+LAZY which resulted in the same thing, not going to the library. I had money to buy some books if I wanted, but that required either (a) going to a store (see BUSY/LAZY OTP) or (b) trolling Amazon to find books I was interested in, which was hard. By not reading, I'd lost my knowledge of books and series and authors I would actually be interested in? If that makes sense.
Plus, again, I had fanfiction. And that sounds silly, but there are a lot of good authors out there (buried in mediocrity, yes, but they're there) and reading fanfic could at least satisfy my urges to read when I wasn't in the mood to go through Spindle's End for the 400th time. I was reading stories and learning about them and learning how to write, which is ALSO good. I had just abandoned books.
What I Like About My Kindle
So basically my Kindle was what got me reading again.
I had shown, in my life, a complete and terrible inability to get mine ass to a library in anything resembling a timely fashion. I had also shown that I didn't go to bookstores basically ever, and that I'd really only buy things off of [Amazon, or other online bookstore] if they were FORCEFULLY recommended to me by someone, and even then it was like fffff. I'll do it. Sometime. People sent me books, and I read them and flailed, but getting them myself? It was pretty. major. fail. The only time I would seriously read would be over the vacation/trips Jeff and I would take, and that would be me at the library, half-heartedly selecting a bunch of fantasy books I didn't recognizing and hoping the 7 or so I picked would be alright. Meh, I said.
And then I got a Kindle for Christmas!
For me, it is like MAGIC: BOOKS. ON DEMAND. WHEN I WANT THEM.
I have called this section "Things I Like About my Kindle" because that is exactly what I want to talk about, what I personally like about the Kindle.
I love that it is hooked up directly to a store, which is linked to my Amazon.com account and thus credit card, which means that all I have to do is search the store for a book, click "BUY", and the Kindle version will appear on the screen in a matter of seconds for my immediate enjoyment. I don't have to connect it to a computer and load books; it does that FOR me.
I love that Amazon offers a Kindle discount, because I think that's fair; I also like that some books are offered for free, although I haven't yet really dabbled in that.
I find my Kindle very readable. The smallest or second-smallest test will work for me in normal settings, and I find it no more obnoxious to press a "Next Page" button as I might to turn a page or scroll a mouse. Yes, I have taken it to the beach (in a case) and it was perfectly readable there, too. I've also had opportunity to use the larger test sizes, in two different sorts of settings - (a) when running on the treadmill at the gym, which makes close-object focusing difficult; and (b) when wearing my contact lenses, which means my eyes are not 100% corrected. (this will actually appear later in this meme, but my vision is kind of non-correctable with contacts; I can get anywhere from 60%-90% depending on the day, my blood sugar, and the light in the room.)
In both cases I found the larger test just as clear and readable as print, and I also really liked having one device that could switch text size (rather than buying a large-print book or something).
I haven't used this very much, but the Kindle also will connect to the internet - it's kind of hidden in my version, but I think newer versions make it more easily find-able? Either way, I was able to browse the AO3 for some Criminal Minds fanfic, on my Kindle, and that was pretty awesome.
I LOVE the fact that I can purchase a bajillion books onto it and it will NEVER take up any more space than it does in its nice neat leather case. Being as fast of a reader as I am, I seriously would take 7 books on a 1-week vacation: one for each day. And when you're pulling from the library, it means sometimes you have to take hardcovers, and then you lose that space in your suitcase. So for me, I love that I can stack all the books I might need onto the Kindle. If I run out, I can purchase another book, immediately. ADDITIONALLY, since it is connected to my Amazon.com account, people can buy books FOR ME and they'll appear on my Kindle. (People can buy me paperbacks, too, I don't mind; I'm just saying.)
It also helps the books/clutter around my house: I can buy paperback/hardcover copies of books I loved and want to have on hand (if I decide to spend additional money!) but I don't have a shelf full of "Books I Read That Were Meh."
The number of books I've read in 2010 is probably higher than the number of books I read from 2005-2009. This is directly related to the possession of my Kindle.
What I think about the Kindle in general or for others
I am thrilled with my Kindle! Personally, for me, it is a wicked awesome solution. However! I am not everyone. So I feel like I should address this!
The first thing that comes to mind is that you have to buy the books from Amazon. I'll split that up: you have to (a) buy the books (b) from Amazon. (a) is an issue for people who don't have the disposable income to buy all of their books; I'm admittedly lucky that I can afford to purchase a couple books a month if I so choose. Amazon does give a discount; normally it's about 20%: I've seen higher on some random books, but I don't know how they sort out that system.
And because it's an e-book, you can't then give it to a friend, or donate it to the library, or sell it at a book swap: that money is spent, and it's spent on the copy on your e-reader. I know not everyone has the privilege of disposable income.
It also means that by default you are supporting Amazon. I haven't been able to look into whether or not you can purchase or obtain books from other sources (sorry,
shanaqui ._. ) -- I have not tried.
(In fact, I should put this here: I haven't tried to 'hack' my Kindle at all. All of the books on it have been legally purchased from Amazon.com; I haven't made any attempts to load other books on there, or direct it to other websites, or even to put my books on the computer or some other source. I kind of haven't had the time (or when I did I didn't think of my Kindle). I'm not much of a technology 'hacker' anyway; I use stuff mostly the way it was meant to be used like a boring old boringguy.)
(I've also never used any other brand of ereader, so I can't do a comparison of KINDLE VS [WHATEVER]; it was a gift, so I'm not even sure what process of elimination went into the choosing of it, sadly. I am an uninformed customer in those terms.)
The one downside that's saddest to me is that these are electronic copies of the book, so, like I said - you can't lend it to a friend if you read something amazing. You can't flip through the book until you get to THAT PART that you liked so much (or, you can, but you kind of have to electronically 'eyeball' the page number or chapter and then click a lot of 'next page' buttons). And that's a direct result of something I love about it - its small size and paper-saving ability - so I am conflicted.
I think its strength depends on the way that you read and get books, honestly. For someone like me, the advantages vastly outweigh the disadvantages. For someone who loves the library or can't afford the purchases, it probably would not work nearly as well. For someone who doesn't need portability, that entire side of it might not even register.
And some thoughts on e-readers as a whole
I like that e-readers exist. There, I said it. I like it. I do. I'm not sure if it means "print is dead" or "publishing is dead" or "Amazon will rule the world" or whatever - I am severely uninformed, ok? But I like that they exist.
I'm not sure why people might have an aversion to them, either; like I said, I'm not too informed, so if somehow I am cutting in on an author's cut of profits by using one, well, shame on me :( -- but you'd think with an electronic copy there's less paper/printing/other expense and an author might deserve a higher return, no? And it is still a thing that must be charged and plugged in, and for some people it will never replace an actual book - but I think that's okay?
(
shanaqui mentioned her mother and vision; not only is this close to my own heart and my own limited eyesight, but we will probably buy a Kindle for my grandmother, whose vision is deteriorating. I love that she will still be able to read, which she loves, and that we can surprise her with new books any time we want to.)
Are they perfect? Of course not. Are they gimmicky? Maybe.
I love books, right, but I love stories, not just the physical paper incarnations of them. It's awesome that I can go home and download Robin McKinley's Pegasus or Bujold's Cryoburn (when they come out) and it will be there before I'm done with dinner. Maybe that's a true sign of my laziness, but I embrace it?
I hope no one ever tells me I'm a terrible person for having an e-reader (uh, if you were going to comment and say that, I guess you still can? it might make for an interesting experience!) - for me, personally, individually, it is definitely the thing that has had me return to the world of books and stories, and I'm not entirely sure how that is a bad thing.
This is part of my 30 Days of Posting meme - feel free to check out the schedule of posting and contribute if there are any spaces! DW || LJ
This entry was originally posted at http://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/34695.html, which has
comments. Comment there (with OpenID) or here, it's all good.