I have swiped a book.
No I did not steal it I "swiped" it, with most of the connotations that word entails. Heres the story.
Its 10.50 at night on a friday and I am not out partying as any self respecting single24 year old professional should. Instead I am curled up at my desk with a bottle of left over christmas cyder, a copy of Ahn Do's biography "the happiest refugee" and listening to Tim minchin sing about bears hating dancing. In a moment of thoughtless, happy, buzzy pleasure my finger made a movement it has become overly familiar with.
I swiped the page.
Single index finger movement from right to left.
Ladies and gentlemen an involuntary movement of this nature can only mean one thing, I am officially an e-reader. A shame to bibliophiles everywhere.
I understand where this training came from, my iPad is too much fun to use and so useful on the long trip home on the train. Instead of carrying a lone paperback much abused after a week of intense use I can have a library at my fingertips without being on the Internet (Gutenberg project is the best thing to come any uni graduate). I can use my iPad as a reference tool when walking among the stacks or to keep in touch with relatives during lunch break. The tablet has made itself too darn useful! Some of my colleagues have told me plainly that they see them more as a fad, and not too applicable in other areas of life,but the same was said of the Black-crack-berry. I can't turn sideways without hearing whining booksellers moaning about the uncertain future of print(which I think is a load of bollucky bulldung) but I do love my iPad.
As the unconscious movement has proven, the darn thing now has me trained.
Now a quick note in my defence. I still love books. Although the whole point of this post is to agonise I have to say the fact that I was reading an actual hard copy book proves I am not completely converted. So why does it have to be one or the other? Isn't there enough room in the world for both?
A book is so much more than a screen. There is something intimate about curling up with a real book. As many texts as I have stored on my iPad I cant feel the smooth, slightly furry texture of a page or smell the paper and ink as I turn a page for the first time. You can't highlight or graffiti on a screen, doodle in a corner or make notations or dog ear a page. With an ebook I can only stare at a screen and be careful not to drop the bloody expensive toy. A book is a relationship. For however long you hold it in your hand you are part of a secret world. With every new book I read I find myself battling with unknown foes for an uncertain future. I learn and arguing with wise druids and professors, I fall in love with the most unlikely people and weep when they leave.
Constantly I draw different meanings from strange and weird sources and I can't stop! Wouldn't if I could. These imagined scenes become events in my life as my mind plays them as clearly as if they were memories in my life. I see the faces of Belgarath and his daughter Polgara, Shadow, Moist Von Lipvig, Christopher Robin, Mary Lennox, John Proctor, even little Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and anyone who knows the power of stories will say the same no matter what format it is presented in.
If you still can't believe that written print will last for the next fifty years I will tell you some facts that I havn't seen mentioned in any article yet.
1. Elderly people can't stare at any screen longer than an hour, backlit or not. Eyes too weak, glasses too thick, it can't be done, they demand the real thing.
2. You can't give an ebook as a present, only a voucher and there are some definite opinions about vouchers as gifts... You know what I mean.
3. Would you teach your child to read on an iPad?
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