An eBook Fairytail

There are fewer things in the world I love more than reading a good book – I love browsing book stores (I have been known to spend well over an hour in Border books just looking – oh how I miss Borders) I enjoy rubbing my hand over the shiny new cover and the first time I crack the spine of a new book never fails to make me smile. I love reading the ‘About the Author’ at the front of the book and flicking the pages as I get ever nearer to the conclusion of the story which has me so enthralled.

Ok, I think you all now understand how I feel about reading and books now let me tell you about recent developments which have convinced me to give up books forever – and by ‘recent developments’ I mean I am running out of space for my books, actually no let me rephrased that I HAVE run out of space for my books – they are everywhere. Once I find a book that I love I hang on to it for dear life, this is this reason that I am thinking about investing in an eBook Reader.

We have one in our house already but up until this point I had always resisted the lour of this gadget. It makes me so sad to think that never again would I smell a new book by my bed and is there really any satisfaction in powering down your eBook Reader instead of closing the back page of a book after you have just finished it with a slam and satisfied sigh? My hearts says no hold on to your books – those enticing covers and delicious noise they make as I quickly flick the pages are not to be given up, but my head says that books are so inefficient and un-environmentally friendly that soon they will probably be confined to museums rather than libraries.

Both I think make a good argument for their cause but does Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Sophie Kinsella & Belinda Jones really care that you’re not reading it in physical form – no they just care that their stories are being told!

Ok guys so I have decided that an eBook Reader is now in my near future let me bring my next problem into the equation - in my house there is probably close to 800 books. Will I be able to get all of them in electronic form? Probably not, and even if I could how much is it going to cost to transfer my existing collection - probably somewhere in the region of £7000 and that is before I have even thought about buying a new title! That is quite a lump of cash for something that I already own.

The transfer from CD to download seemed so much easier & cheaper! But still I am not deterred from making the move to an eBook Reader – this is no different from converting from VHS to DVD, collections are not built up in a few weeks or even years a collection is an entire life time of choices.

Will I miss books? Absolutely! It is the end of an era but perhaps the beginning of a new one.

http://www.alchtech.co.uk/index.php/it-blog