Hindustan Times
I am a convert to e-reading
I was out of town for work over the weekend. And for the first time since I had begun to read as a small child, I travelled without any books. Well, not without any books. I went on the trip without a physical book. I took along my e-reader. It worked a treat. (I did cheat. At the last moment, I slipped in a single physical book: What if the e-reader crashed or broke or didn’t work or I lost it? You can’t be too careful. But I meant to – in all earnestness – do my reading from the e-reader.)
So the evening before I set off, I went through the kindle store and bolstered my collection of ebooks. Here is what I finally took along.
Pray: Notes on the 2011-2012 Season by Nick Hornby: An insightful, witty rumination on the last season of the English Premier League, a season that is as defining and dramatic as any in the history of the league. Available only as an ebook.
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig: A modern masterpiece. Funny, poignant, dark, and, in the end, heartbreaking. It was published as an NYRB classic, but is not seen in chain brick-and-mortar stores.
The Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle: You don’t need me to tell you about this one. All the four Sherlock Holmes novels, all the 56 short stories, and some non-Holmes titles. I had been looking all over for this in a physical form, but was unable to find an edition in which the print was large enough to not hurt my eyes. Here, the font was beautiful, the type size large, and I could enlarge it further if I wanted. All for 99 cents.
It was brilliant. No more lugging books around. No more agonizing about whether I have got the right books. At any moment that the urge to read a particular book takes hold of me, I can now buy it, and start reading in less than half a minute. I am a convert.
There is only one rider: they don’t let you read during take-off and landing.
(4 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)
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