Why I've given up on e-books | Pinnacle Newsletter #41
#41 Why I’ve given up on e-books
I’ve been a reader of e-books for a long time. In 2005, before the Kindle came along, I was buying e-books on ereader.com and reading them on my Palm handheld. By 2012 I was reading virtually everything on my Kindle. But now, in 2019, when I read for pleasure I read on paper or listen to an audiobook. What changed for me? And why are real books flourishing in a digital age?
For me, the great benefit of an e-reader was the ability to carry several books on a backpacking trip with minimal weight and bulk. I was never impressed by the ability to carry dozens or hundreds of books. I tend to read one book at a time, and I came to believe that this ability to fill an e-reader up with cheap or free books might even be harming authors (the jury’s still out on this one, but I do know that I value a paperback more than a 99p Kindle download – and am therefore more likely to read it). For me, e-books weren’t about quantity – they were simply about convenience in a specific scenario.
Soon, I was reading virtually everything on Kindle, but things began to change for me in 2014 when I set up Pinnacle Editorial. Suddenly my job involved reading thousands of words every day on a screen. I found it more difficult to sit back and relax with a Kindle book because my editing reflex would be triggered by the screen in front of me. That’s no way to read for pleasure. Gradually, I started to buy paperbacks and hardbacks again. I still took my Kindle on the trail – until, that is, I discovered Audible in 2015.
Overnight, I became an audiobook convert:
Listening to an audiobook on your phone requires less battery power than reading an e-book, because the screen is not active.
It’s a far more immersive experience (or at least it is for me). The right audiobook can really add to the experience of a long-distance trail. I still associate Hyperion by Dan Simmons with hiking the Tour of Monte Rosa.
You can lie down in your sleeping bag and listen to an audiobook without contorting yourself into uncomfortable positions trying to look at a screen. This is a huge advantage. The downside is that it’s easier to fall asleep with the audiobook running.
I still have the Kindle app on my phone, but use it exclusively for guidebooks now. The only Kindle books I’ve bought in the last six months are Cicerone guides.
I’ve discovered that, when reading for pleasure, my perfect combo looks like this: audiobooks on the trail plus paper books everywhere else. There’s little room for the e-book in between. It lacks the pleasure and tactility of the ‘real’ book, and it’s less immersive than the audiobook (which retains most of the e-book’s other advantages in a travel context).
What about the market as a whole? Why has the Kindle juggernaut failed to crush the older, more primitive technology? I think there are a number of reasons:
Publishers have reacted to the rise of the e-book by upping their design game. I think the last decade has seen a renaissance in paperback and hardback design.
When you shop for a real book in a bookstore, there is an element of serendipity, of chance, even a little romance. You never quite know what you’re going to find, even if you think you know what you want. Shopping for a Kindle book is a sterile experience, guided by soulless algorithms.
As more things in our lives become digital, we crave authenticity. We long for things that are real. An e-book may closely replicate a book, may even improve upon it in some ways, but it’s still a simulation of a physical object. A book is more than just the data it contains. That’s why some people will continue to prefer paper, and I think it’s at the heart of the vinyl revival and the film photography revival too.
Ultimately, it’s nice to do stuff that doesn’t involve looking at a screen once in a while.
Both e-books and paper books are here to stay – as are audiobooks. It’s great that more and more titles are now being launched in all three mediums.
In other news…
My month is about to get busy. I begin work on the new book by John Burns on Monday, and stories for Sidetracked Vol. 14 have started to land on my desk. Plenty to do before I can sign off at the end of the month for my Cape Wrath Trail!
Recently published
What I’ve been reading this week.
Book review: The Wilderness Cookbook by Phoebe Smith – I review a book that aims to save us from bland and boring hill food.
From my Commonplace Book
Arguments about medium always compare the best of the old with the worst of the new.
—C.G.P. Grey
Until next time,
Alex
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