On (not) embracing the e-Reader

I’m not what one would call a “fast adopter” when it comes to technology. I’m not someone that’s into gadgets and gizmos and things that light up. I have a laptop that got my through grad school and is still humming along, and recently got a Droid phone because my older model BlackBerry routinely refused to do anything. But we don’t have a BluRay player, and only recently switched over from a 10 year old CRT TV to a flat screen.

Because of this, I figured my resistance to e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook was mainly about me and my general Luddite approach to new technology. BUT a new article came out today that Jodi Piccoult tweeted, and by all accounts, it looks like I’m not alone.
http://www.bnet.com/blog/technology-business/e-reader-bad-news-some-people-want-8216em-but-most-don-8217t/5671

I’ll admit, there are certain aspects of the e-Reader I find really appealing. Instant access, for one. At this point, I order probably 80% of my books online, thanks to a program on one of our credit cards that gives us rewards credits at Amazon.com, feeding my book habit and Brian’s DVD habit. But the annoying part of that is waiting for shipping. Sometimes, when a book catches my fancy, I want it in my hands NOW, not three days from now (if I’m lucky, since I’m far too cheap to pay for something like expedited shipping).

And then there’s the weight and space factor. My husband and I travel frequently, it’s our shared passion. And while I’m not a big fan of flying, I’m a HUGE fan of 5-6 hours of uninterrupted reading time while we get from one place to another. I read fairly quickly, which means I need lots of material for cross-country and international flights. On our last trip to Vegas, I brought 5 books and finished them all before the flight home. That’s a lot of valuable real estate luggage, especially in the days of huge baggage fees and trying to cram as much as possible into my carryon.

But despite these obvious conveniences, I just can’t get behind it. I just love books too much. The actual, physical book. While everyone else was complaining about the weight (and exorbitant cost) of textbooks in college, I was always excited by the slippery stacks of paperbacks for each of my English classes. I love opening books for the first time and getting that subtle crack of a paperback binding. I love turning down and dog earing pages so I can pick them up again later and find my spot. I love the weight of a really thick paperback, how the way it feels changes in my hands as I progress through the story, and the sense of accomplishment mixed with sadness that it’s over when I flip from the last page to the About the Author in the back. I even love the smell of the paper, especially when it’s that slightly offwhite paper that reminds me of the Babysitters Club books I used to read by the dozen in grade school.

And though I feel like a bit of a traitor because of my online shopping habits, I love bookstores. One of my roommates in college and I would regularly take the T down to Coolidge Corner to wander around Brookline Booksmith for HOURS. Upstairs is new books, downstairs is used. We would each walk out with a half a dozen or so new books. Fiction, stuff related to our classes, poetry, sometimes even another copy of a Jane Austen with a really cool cover (we both suffer from an addition to 19th century British women writers). And even the big box bookstores hold a ton of charm for me. I can waste a day wandering up and down the shelves, picking up books with covers that catch my eye and checking out the back for a good synopsis. I’m pretty sure I could easily blow an entire week’s paycheck in one stop at a Barnes and Noble. Which means it’s probably better that I do my shopping online! While clicking through the virtual stacks of Amazon can be a fun experience, the sheer volume of what’s available makes it hard for things to stand out. Searching for titles is far more efficient when I’m looking for something specific, but it just doesn’t have the same effect and makes it harder to discover new things outside of what I was already looking for.

I’m also really, really possessive of my books. I don’t like libraries because I want my books to be MINE. I joined paperbackswap.com in an effort to curtail my spending, but it was just too hard for me to part with well loved, and even not well loved, books of mine. This resulted in a ridiculous number of HEAVY boxes that needed to go from our apartment to our house, but I still couldn’t bear to let them go.

So I’m pretty sure I’m not likely to embrace the e-Reader trend anytime soon. I do have an app to turn my phone into a Kindle, so maybe I’ll test drive a book on that for my next trip to cut down on my luggage burden. But I don’t think anything will replace the book for me.