Reading Electronic Books

So, if you don’t know, I own an iPad. Yes, I have one of the coolest new geek toys on the block. Not only do I have the iPad, I went all out and bought the best one they had. I use my iPad for just about everything these days, rarely touching my Macbook.

One of the things I bought it for was books. I wanted to be able to read novels without carrying all the heft of a small library with me when I deployed. Don’t get me wrong, nothing will ever replace the feel of a well worn novel in your hands. The bent and sandy pages as you pull it out of your ruck to catch a few minutes of escape from your current reality. I will never get that from an iPad, let alone carry it in my ruck across the desert.

However, I like to read, and when I curl up at night, my books offer a way for me to relax and escape into another world. So I figured having an e-reader of some sort would be more than handy on my next deployment, not to mention having the ability to watch movies, get e-mail, etc. So I went and downloaded iBooks, and the Amazon Kindle app from the App store.

After a search, and downloading a few free titles I finally found a book I was really interested in reading, Ares Express by Ian McDonald. I paid my fees, and downloaded it to my iPad (and consequently my Mac and iPhone thanks to sync ability).

Generally, I have found reading books on the iPad to be enjoyable. I haven’t suffered the rumored eye strain, the backlighting has been sufficient, and the typography has been good, independent of the book reading app I have used. I did find that Amazon seems to have a better selection, but all the newer titles are available on both apps. iBooks has certain advantages in being an Apple product on an Apple computer, but all in all they offer about the same experience.

Like I said though, nothing can really replace a “real” book. There is just something about paper that makes the reading experience that much more visceral. Turning the pages instead of tapping a corner, bending the spine, inserting a bookmark – not tapping the screen to bookmark. Throwing it in your bag and pulling the bent and battered text out. That can’t be replaced. However, if you are looking to carry around several novels, work documents, etc and have limited space, this new class of e-readers really can’t be beat, and on a device like the iPad the experience is really enjoyable. I am hooked!

I just hope my digital library is as long lasting as my analog library has been. I would really be horrible if my digital text just suddenly became inaccessible one day.