I am not what can be called a careful reader. I love printed books—I live surrounded by them, and help create them. But I dogear my books, and leave them open which cracks the spine. I read in the shower, which causes the pages to curl up. I’d like all the books of a series to match, but this, I am not really hung up about.
What lingers for any book I read is the story within. This sounds really trite, I know, and while the pleasure from the physical book—the design and the feel of the paper and the weight of the cover—is very much there, these are pleasures I forget more quickly.
Reading for me is very private. I do recommend books, of course to friends, and those I really really like, on social media— may be one in three months—because I feel the world needs to read them. I do not review, and I do not make target lists of books I want to read. I do lurk on Goodreads spying on what other people say, without ever sharing my opinion.
Illustration by Tanvi Bhat
For the longest time, reading on screen seemed like work to me, because that is what I did all day. I slowly espoused technology and iBooks came preinstalled on my iPad and phone, but I did not read on the screen by choice.
Then what changed? Maybe it was just the free books on Amazon. Since I read enormous amounts of mindless books, especially historical romances, it was nice to have them for free. So I downloaded the Kindle app on my phone and vroomed my way through dozens, possibly hundreds, of free books. I could discard them when they got too mushy, and on days when my brain felt like mush, it was the perfect companion.
And travel. Since I, like many others, habitually pack three books for an overnight trip, reading digitally shortened my airport times drastically as I could travel with hand luggage only. Then, there was the wider choice. It became a pattern in my life that I would log into the free wifi at the airport at the start of every trip and quickly download some books. It made me feel wonderfully secure to know I had choices.
Just when it was getting tedious to read on the phone screen, a friend gifted me a Kindle (I was too parsimonious to buy one for myself). Sadly, he was not someone who knew very much about Kindles, so he bought me one without backlighting. I may not be into slick gizmos but even I could tell that backlighting was essential to happiness.
Despite this shortcoming, the Kindle has changed my life—and for the better. I may be buying fewer print books but I am definitely buying more—because on the Kindle, books are cheaper. With print books which sometimes cost in excess of Rs 1000 (really, too much for a one-time read), price does become a consideration.
The other joy of the Kindle is that I can read one-handed. Books, especially hardbacks, are very hard to read when one is hanging one-handed from the Metro bar. And it’s so easy to carry around since it fits into pockets.
And the speed—oh I love the speed! Especially when I am reading a fantasy series, it is amazing to finish the one and have the next available within minutes.
For me, the one major disadvantage of the Kindle is the community option. My two colleagues and I—though we live in different cities—swap books regularly. A book bought by one of us is always read by at least two others. This was almost gone with the Kindle but it now determines the selection of the books I will buy in print, and those I buy on the Kindle.
And of course, one of the pleasures of the printed book is the particularity of your copy of a book. A book which may have belonged to one’s mother; one taken on a holiday with that splotch of coffee on page 37 from the seaside café in Kochi; that copy of a particular book gifted by a former lover—these momentary flashes of pure pleasure when a lost life comes back from a particular copy of a book—these histories, well…they are not going to be there with my Kindle.