Thursday, November 27, 2008

Why I continue buying books

Even though e-books have been readily available in the Internet for a while now, I still don’t ‘dig’ it. I understand that reading e-books is relatively cheaper, environment-friendly and convenient than buying books. It also minimizes clutter in your house.

My apprehension is not totally unfounded. In fact, I’ve tried reading e-books during the summer. This experience actually strengthened my belief that books still rule. Why?

Reading from a computer screen for long periods of time causes eye strain. This is a real bugger if you’re reading a long book; the eye strain will prevent you from continuing. I learned from experience (of reading cases) that I can read for longer periods of time when it’s on paper. Also, you can’t curl up in bed while reading from a laptop. Even if you do, it just seems unnatural.

Plus, it’s easier to locate where I stopped, which parts I liked and how much more pages I need to read when I’m holding a real and tangible book.

The thrill and ritual of going to a bookstore, reading a book’s gist in the back cover, gathering all the books that interest me and finally deciding on which one (or two) to buy is non-existent. So is the pleasure I derive from smelling its pages after removing the plastic.

Merely looking at my book collection neatly stacked in a shelf makes me happy, giddy even. I have yet to feel that way when I’m looking at my e-books alphabetically arranged in a folder in D:.

These are the reasons why I continue to scrimp on some things and make a monthly trip to the bookstore.

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