It’s pouring outside and it’s a cozy, cuddle-up-in-bed, ignore-the-world-and-just-read kind of day. You’re so engrossed in what you’re reading, you don’t even hear the thunder that rattles the panes of your bedroom window. You finish page after page, faster and faster, gobbling up each sentence more greedily than the last, not even stopping to think. But are you holding a book, or a Kindle?
For those who have fully accepted the technological revolution that gave you a choice between reading this column on newsprint or your computer screen, the answer to this question is irrelevant. Words are words: It doesn’t matter which way you choose to read them.
But to others, such as stalwart authors whose inspiration stems from scribbling on scraps of paper, not typing letters on a keyboard, digitizing the written word is a crime. Intrepid readers often find something magical in the way a book looks, smells and feels.
One of my professors from the creative writing department all but forbade my class from using e-versions of our books. Our technology must be checked at the door.
I, too, have fought in that uphill battle. But in the past year, as I have experimented with an iPad and (gasp) even bought an e-textbook or two for class, it has become obvious that this revolution is to be embraced, not shunned. Apps for the iPad and other tablets offer almost endless possibilities. You just need to get past the initial fear of reading a textbook made of pixels instead of paper.
Buying an e-textbook from Barnes & Noble or the Kindle store won’t always save you a whole lot of money, but there are other options that are cheaper and offer even more amenities. At Kno.com, many e-textbooks are even less expensive than used copies from Amazon. Stored online, you only need a computer or your iPad to carry all your books with you at once. No more getting to the library and realizing you’ve forgotten one at home.
CreativeEdge.com, hailed as the Netflix of textbooks, gets you unlimited access to hundreds of books about computer programs and graphic design for a small monthly fee. If you only need a few chapters of that wildly expensive book for your psychology class, Inkling.com will let you purchase just those without paying for the entire book. Most textbook apps will even let you write on, highlight and bookmark the pages. If you’re taking a class that requires reading a lot of classic literature, download the Kindle or Nook app for your laptop. Most of those titles are no longer copyrighted, and you can download as many as you want for free.
It’s unnerving to think of a world without bookstores to browse, where paperbacks and newspapers are kept in museums. I know I’ll never recycle my dog-eared copies of “Ella Enchanted,” “The Catcher in the Rye” and my signed copy of “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” But why take up valuable real estate on your bookshelf with textbooks that just gather dust after the end of the semester? Even if you couldn’t be caught dead with a Kindle, embrace e-technology for what it does for you as a student: It will make your life a whole lot easier.