E-books have been around for far longer than most people would perhaps immediately assume. The earliest being an annotated index to Thomas Aquinas’ works by Roberto Busa, which began in 1946. However, it is in the twenty-first century that they have truly come into their own, launched into the public sphere with the popularity of e-readers, most notably Amazon’s Kindle.
They have completely transformed the way in which we can read, condensing hefty tomes into a slim tablet, turning countless pages into a single screen; but are these changes for better or for worse?
The most glaring benefit of e-books is the sheer convenience of them; a five-hundred-page book can be reduced into a pdf file, a near-limitless number of books can fit onto the seemingly unending expanse of an e-reader or phone screen, and you can carry an entire library in your bag – lugging around hundreds of kilos worth of books for a minute fraction of their original weight. There’s no need to waste precious luggage space on several books for a holiday, or to spend time agonising on what to pick to read on a long journey – e-books have got you sorted. Even better, if you unexpectedly finish whatever you’re currently reading, there’s no need to hunt for the nearest Waterstones or charity shop; there’s a vast supply of new reads at your fingertips, many of which can even be downloaded for free.
Even non-free e-books are often cheaper than their physical counterparts, or at least than the first-hand editions, due to the lack of materials required to publish and distribute them. There is the initial cost of an e-reader to be considered, if that’s your preferred e-book vessel, but if you’re content to scroll on a phone (albeit perhaps a slightly less enjoyable experience), then there’s no need to purchase a new device, and you can simply enjoy access to an endless selection of cheaper books.
Another convenience is the ease with which they can be read in less than optimal lighting conditions – there’s something quite nice about reading off of a screen that produces its own light, especially if it’s something like a kindle which isn’t overly glaring, rather than needing to struggle with bright lights or torches late at night, particularly if you’re on a dim coach or plane.
However, despite these numerous positives, in many ways, e-books still fall short when compared to physical books. Swiping on a lightweight screen doesn’t compare to turning pages yourself and being able to feel the paper between your fingers. Although e-books allow you to highlight and annotate digitally, it’s just not quite as satisfying as underlining something in pen or flagging pages with a Post-it note.
Additionally, you can’t lend or gift e-books in the same way as physical ones, which is arguably one of the great joys of reading. There are several books I probably would not have gotten around to reading if not for friends lending or gifting them to me, and there’s something truly lovely about the way in which physical books can be shared and passed around. In the case of gifts especially, I love being able to look at the physical copy and remember the occasion and the person from which I received it, in a way that an e-book doesn’t quite allow for.
The negatives of e-books aren’t quite as concrete or tangible as the positives, but they’re still equally, if not more, compelling. E-books are indisputably extremely handy, and definitely have their time and place, but they’re ultimately not truly comparable to a physical book, and I can’t imagine a world where they render physical copies truly obsolete, or at least a world in which I would chose to forego physical books entirely in favour of them.
“Kindle 4” by Roberto_Ventre is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0