Monday 24th July - in praise of real books (and kindles)

 

I have come the to the conclusion that there is a lot to be said for 'real' books. The sort made of paper. Something that doesn't switch itself off when you are halfway through reading a recipe. Something that you can write in and stick sticky notes and bookmarks in. However many of my older books, especially all the cheap paperbacks, have small print on yellowing, crumbling paper. However did I manage to make out the words? 

If you read your book on a kindle you can adjust the brightness and the size of the text according to where you are and how you feel. And a kindle isn't very heavy compared to some of the paper books. And you can get a dictionary definition of a word just by highlighting it. 

But it is easier to flip backwards and forwards in a real paperback to find the paragraph referred to 100 pages further on. But you can have loads of books in the one little handheld kindle. But you can't share and pass on kindle books to your friends.  

Oh dear. Now, I am confused and can't really choose one over the other. But either one has to be better than reading books on a tablet, surely? I am coming to the conclusion that a tablet is the invention of the devil. There never had been such a device for encouraging one to waste so much time. 

In fact it might be a good idea to put the tablet somewhere out of reach and save myself from myself... I start to read with good intentions but then three hours later I have indeed read some of my book, but also followed an idea from the book deep into the tangles of the internet and youtube, taken in a couple of tiktoks, checked out twitter and the news and accidentally found myself playing freecell and sudoku. How did that all happen?

Ah, but, hang on... if I read books on a tablet I can zoom into an illustration, enlarge it, pore over it, examine the details, enjoy full colour pictures. I can select and copy bits of text to paste into this blog... I can even write this blog if I am prepared to stab it the little letters one by one of the screen...

The only solution is to pick the right method for the right time, and if that turns out to be the tablet, well aren't we all being exhorted to learn a little self-discipline? I suspect it may be too late for me. 

I've allocated this post to yesterday. I didn't get round to posting last night (playing sudoku instead, probably)