Several years ago when we were in California, I visited with a lady who had one of the first Kindles on which she said she had begun to do all of her leisure reading. She let me examine it for a few minutes.
She had downloaded a best selling novel on it, and I read some of it on its little screen, glowing with blue light. I turned the pages by pressing its little buttons.
Being a reader, I was fascinated with the device. But I was not fascinated with the price of $400, and I am low tech. So I never pictured having one of my own.
Competition from similar devices soon reduced their price, so the next Christmas Santa caught the Kindle on sale and left it under my Christmas tree. I was thrilled but intimidated. Did I tell you I’m very low tech?
I read the directions. Twice. I didn’t understand any of it. What happened to Christmas gifts that worked as soon a you plugged them in?
I made some discreet inquiries about how to get the Kindle going. Like, could you just plug it in somewhere? Did it know what to do or did I have to have a degree in computer technology to read a book on this thing?
I hate asking about electronics, because people who know the answers always ask me embarrassing questions in return.
“Do you have wifi?” one helpful person asked.
“Uh, I’ve seen the word. But I don’t think I have one.” (Remember, this was early days when all this stuff was just becoming a requirement for living on Planet Earth.)
“Okay, do you have a router?” was the next question.
Realizing that she probably didn’t mean the tool my husband used that gouges holes in wood, I asked, Uh... what does one look like?”
“So,” she replied sadly, “you probably don’t have one.”
I sent my husband to get a router and find out what this wifi thing was. While he was looking, he met a young friend who was able to come over to get me up and running. She connected things and hooked things up and did things on the computer and said, “um humm” a lot. She was kind about my low-techness.
When she finished she told me that I was almost ready to go. “Now you just have to...” and she rattled off some directions about how to get on wifi and how to order books for my Kindle.
“Wait,” I said. “Let me write that down.” I can do almost anything that is described in English. Still, I was careful to write down her phone number too, “in case I have any questions.”
Once I realized that the device actually did know what to do without much coaching from me, I ordered my books and began to read.
With most of the technical terror behind me. I liked the Kindle. I read several novels on it and was excited to be reading 21st Century style, but at the same time, I was worried about the effects of paperless reading.
If you have electronic books, when do you go to the library and hear the seriously academic sound of heavy volumes being plunked down on wooden tables? When do you read the blurbs on the covers of books and come out with a satisfying stack of old novels to read?
That tower of books by my bed is security to me. It means I’ll be entertained for weeks. My little device had plenty of books stored on it, but it looked too thin and sterile on my nightstand to bring much comfort.
The feel of paper in a book charms me. I like dog-earring pages and going back to them to reread the best sentences. Yes, the librarian takes a dim view of dog-earring, but I try to do this only on books I own. I can’t dog-ear on an electronic device.
Of course, everyone is reading on devices now instead of books. You can even read on your phone, though the size of the print and the wobbling of the screen bother me.
As I predicted, reading on devices did become the standard in education. Students are issued the devices on which all their textbooks are loaded, available at a click. They no longer have to lug a 40-pound backpack up and down the halls every day, just a few ounces of microchips. Instead of replacing expensive textbooks every year, schools just pay a fee to download what students need.
But I already feel sorry for them because they won’t have the joy of turning through a colorful first-grade reader or being the first to page through the glossy chapers of a new science book.
While the convenience of the devices is great, I gave them up for leisure reading. I love the feeling of real paper and turning real pages. I could read on my phone or my ipad if I wanted to, but it will have to wait while I do a little low-tech, old-fashioned reading in a book to restore my sense of security.
I’ve just put a Tom Clancy novel under my Reading Lamp, and I might want to dog-ear a page or two for old time’s sake.
