Saturday 15 June 2013

How Do You Read?

A publisher's site, http://nosycrow.com/blog/how-do-you-read, asks for feedback about whether people prefer to read books electronically or in hard copy.

My friend bought a Kindle a couple of years ago, and initially was very enthusiastic about it.

Yesterday I went with this same old friend to have lunch at The British Library.  After lunch, we browsed in the shop.  However, I noticed that, in the actual shop, she was eagerly grabbing hold of the beautifully arranged books, smoothing her hand caressingly over the pristine covers of the paperbacks,  admiring the colours, and generally acting like the books were a box of expensive chocolates which she craved and coveted.

I asked her about her current feelings about books.

She told me she was becoming tired of the Kindle.  It is so easy to download books that she has about 160 waiting to be read.  They all look the same.  There are no distinguishing covers, you can't easily go back and forth or insert notes in the margins.  They don't have a FEEL.  In short, she intends to resume her old habit of browsing in bookshops.

5 comments:

  1. I think I'm bookshops' worst nightmare - I browse the novels, then go away and order them for kindle. I have a very simple rule with my book buying - ebooks for everything except reference books for browsing...such as recipe books.

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  2. I have a kindle but at the moment I am reading a paperback.....I can't quite get as pleased with the reading experience when I'm holding a slim brick of plastic.

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  3. I have a Kindle but have hardly ever used it. I would use it if I went abroad, rather than taking my own weight in books, but I prefer the real thing. I also want to support bookshops!

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  4. I love my Kindle. Living in France means I can't access cheap books very easily and I have no more space in my house for them anyway, so the Kindle it is.

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  5. Interesting how people all have a Kindle, whether they love it or not. Maybe I should get one ....

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