The Electronic Age of “THE BOOK”.

By Patti McCarthy

If you would have told me ten years ago that buying a book in electronic format was possible I would have thought you were crazy.  But then again, 30 years ago, we had no idea that the internet was upon us and in itself would become one of the most powerful tools in our history.  Electronics have sure come full circle since my days of youth.  As much as I grumble about  how they have changed society and we’ve become lazy in the process there has been a huge benefit and I am thankful for what has been invented to make our life easier along the way.

As a lover of books I have often wondered why someone would give the physical book up in place of an electronic version.  Seriously, why would someone give up the chance to walk into a book store, browse, feel and read a few pages from a book by a favourite author? It was unimaginable to me.  I will admit, I was a skeptic and vowed never to cross over to the ‘dark side’ of e-readers. I dug my heals in and tried to rebel against falling into the trend that everyone else seemed to be. I unfortunately, didn’t have great willpower and caved and have never looked back.

In 2009, I became the proud owner of a new Kobo Wifi.  Yup, I am a Canadian and the option for Nook and Kindle e-readers weren’t an option for me at that time.  After having moved several times in the past few years and needing to leave some of my ‘loved’ book collection behind, I’m thankful that I do have my e-reader and its small compact size holds hundreds of books yet fits perfectly in my life.  The days of leaving books behind are long gone. This truly makes my heart happy.  I don’t have to worry about my book marks falling out and loosing my place anymore, spending a fortune on the new release that has just come out in hardcover or waiting to get to the store to buy the next book in the series that I’m just dying to read cause I finished book 1 last night in the middle of the night.  One click in an online store and I’m back in reading business.  What could be better than that?

Unfortunately, with electronics there always seems to be a catch or glitch.  Yesterday I found mine when I was unable to load some of my precious new books and was told that your product isn’t supported by the latest software upgrades. I was devastated. After spending hours on the phone trying to get customer service support I was feeling very defeated.  I then decided to do a factory default reset and removed all 800 plus books from my e-reader in one click of a button.  What a heart wrenching experience that was.  Fortunately for me, I have all those books saved on my hard drives and jump drives so I was able to get it back up and running pretty easily.  Thankfully, all is good in my E-READER world once again, but for a few hours in time, I will admit it was like a piece of my heart was missing when I was unable to read.  How could one simple electronic be so important to my everyday life and survival?  How about you, do you love and cherish the thought of an e-reader or do you scratch your head and wonder what all the hype is about?  I won’t part with the books that grace the bookcases around my home but I find I ‘go to my e-reader’ more times than not when I need to read another book.

I love to be taken away to another place in time on adventure.  Words/books are such an important part of my life.  I truly think I would give everything else up in life just to have endless hours to read and be ‘lost’.  What is your escape in life?

When I was young it was my Mom who tucked me in at night.  Now as a single, 42 year old woman, it is my e-reader.  To be honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It takes me to my happy place and truly makes life worth living.

Patty

From the editor: For those of you who were not aware, ScrapMatters  has lots of book lovers and they have started a book club here in the forum. Many of them are reading the monthly selections on e-readers.

Here are some layouts in the gallery about e-readers.

Love My Kindle by Neverland Scraps

Kindle Books by Amy Stoffel