Yesterday on the bus to work I discovered a new reason why
paper-and-ink books are better than ebooks. It's a point I'd somehow
missed in the nearly two years since buying an ereader.
The
book I was reading when this thought occurred to me wasn't a
particularly satisfying book. It was a teen suspense novel about a
serial killer with the main character realizing she had some feelings
for her best-friend-since-the-first-grade. Once the two admit to one
another their feelings have changed to romance, we the readers are
subjected to being reminded about it every third paragraph, which
detracted greatly from the story of the serial killer, which was well,
if not masterfully, written.
Whether because of or in spite of my lack of complete satisfaction
for the tale, it suddenly dawned on me in the middle of the penultimate
chapter that when I get to the end of a book in an ereader, the book would simply end.
But when I finish a book with paper and cloth or leather, I can close that book with a snap! You can't do that with an ereader. Of all the companies jumping on the bandwagon (or bookwagon) to embrace this technology, there is no snap! feature. And if that book was a particularly satisfying read, that snap! is particularly satisfying. With a less-than-stellar read, even the snap! is taken away from you.
Wonderful point! I own an ereader now (Thanks Santa!) but even now I use it more as a backup or for games than for anything I'm currently reading. Another advantage to paper-and-ink books (pai books?) is that you can stack them up, line them up, spread them out, and shelve them, which makes browsing for a favorite to read SO MUCH MORE SATISFYING than scrolling through a list of titles.
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