eReader Fail.

I love books - no secret there. This might stem from the fact that my mother has read to me basically from birth on. I love the children’s Dr.Seus and Robert Munsch books that I have read and re-read a million times over the years. I love “chick” books as T calls them. I’ve read every book by Emily Giffin or Marian Keyes. I also love autobiographies of random people such as Nikki Sixx or Eric Clapton. I loved the Steig Larsson trilogy.

I also love the physical book. I love that you can stick it in your purse, or beside your bed, or next to the bathtub or basically anywhere that isn’t flammable. I love the smell when you walk into a library and millions of aging books line the shelves. I love that after you read a book that you absolutely loved that you can hand it to someone else who you know will love it also and discuss it later. I love how you can tell your favorite books from the creases in the spine.

I love creating endless summer reading lists and losing hours in a book.

I do not love eReaders.

I read my first and probably last book ever on the ipad2 over the last long weekend. I had seen the trailer for ‘One Day’ at the theatre and decided I wanted to read the book before (as always) so the quickest way to get this book was to download it. The cost was supposed to be around $10 through Kobo - $10 for a book I wouldn’t physically have, that I couldn’t share, and would just end up being a $10 file on my computer? No thanks. I could swing by Walmart or Costco and find it there when last minute a coupon arrived in my inbox.

(If you are female read this book and see this movie!)

$8 and a few handfuls of hair later the book appears on my bookshelf on the ipad. Perfect, toss it in the purse and off we go.

My first impression is good. The screen adjusts to the light and I can adjust fonts and can be beyond lazy and just tap the screen to turn a page. However, I still have to prop the ipad up to read it and that can be awkward after long periods of time.

Something flashes – what an email coming in? A distraction out of the corner of my eye that pulls me from what I’m reading, and oh wait another flash the battery is dying and needs to be charged. So now I have to either get to an electrical source soon to charge my book to continue reading or call it a day. Not cool.

After a full charge we hit the beach the next day. I’m terrified of sand or water getting on the ipad and on previous tropical locations we would often leave our books on our chairs and go for a swim. Someone steals a book – so what? $10-$30 later you got yourself a new one. Someone steals your eReader and it gets pricey real quick. So taking an eReader to the beach, or on a cruise, or to a park – probably not your best idea.

Realistically I can only see these being good for people who only ever read in their homes or on planes – just make sure you don’t leave it in the pocket of the seat in front of you.

So there once again in my opinion in which I like to share and it probably makes no difference that I also love a physical copy of Saturday’s newspaper in my hands.

Then again I am getting old and probably not embracing all the new technologies like I used to back in the day….in my twenties J