Rubber? Meet road.
There is a book I want to read and now, having two options, I am seriously on the fence about how to purchase it. See, I know I'm going to love it. I know I'm going to want to read it multiple times and bask in the joy of this particular prose flowing over me. The books in this series are not normal books with standard book pages all uniformly machine cut. They're that slightly off-white, thicker paper with the raggedy edges that make you feel less like you're reading a book and more like you've got a long letter from an old, dear friend in your hands. And I wonder if having it on the Kindle will do it a disservice.
Is the whole experience of the book going to be ruined by not having the nubby edges of the paper to run my thumb along as I read it? Am I going to miss the feel of the paper as I flip pages, greedily consuming the story? Will it somehow suck away a part of my enjoyment in the words to lose that tactile experience that has been a part of the previous episodes?
I just can't decide.
14 hours ago
As much as I do love gadgets and technie stuff, I'm a big proponent of paper-based books. There's a tactile element in reading a paper book that makes it more engaging and even the scent of the paper & binding enriches the experience.
ReplyDeleteAnd maybe it's my imagination, but I think reading off of paper is easier on my eyes than reading off of a screen. This is probably compounded by the fact that I'm usually reading at the end of the day when my eyes are a bit tired.
I have loved my Kindle to this point - and I was worried about reading off a screen, but the Kindle is SO different than reading off a laptop that you really do forget that it's electronic.
ReplyDeleteThat said, for books whose publishers take the time to actually put some thought into the binding and paper choices, you do lose that. For a "normal" book, I can't say I've noticed or missed the tactile experience of reading (cause I agree it's there!) but with these...I'm probably going to stick to the dead tree version.
I'm in complete agreement with Rob. There's just something about books!
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