My sister works in a big public library in Berlin, and she gave me access to her E-book flat rate account. She herself is not using it at all, because of emotional reasons. It happend already several times that I call her to express my gratitude to her, when I enjoyed a new Gary Shteyngart novel, an old Philip Roth novel or another collection of short stories by Amoz Oz. But she interrupts me, and through the telefon I can almost feel her aversion for e-books. She is a romantic, for her reading is synonymous with feeling the weight of a hardcover book in your hands, changing pages by physically picking the paper between your fingertips, and using artisan bookmarks.
I fully understand this nostalgia, since without all this we would have perhaps never went beyond the stage of cuniform inscriptions on clay or hieroglyphs on Egyptian papyrus. And of course I will always advocate that books of high literary quality should be printed in equally high quality books. But for daily use, E-books have certain advantages, but also disadvantages.
Advantages:
- smaller size and weight for a larger book collection
- adjustable font size, if you have problems reading small letters or forgot your glasses (important if you are not a teenager any more)
- Easily copy and past text, if you want to comment in a blog, or send passages to a friend or a critic
- Sand on the beach wont get stuck between the pages, but might leave scratches on the screen
- No danger that the wind will blow through your pages
Disadvantages:
- if the battery goes down, you are left alone
- at intense sun light, the screen contrast is extremely poor
Several times in our vacations on the Black Sea coast, I therefore switched back to an old-fashioned hard-cover book. It also has its advantages in certain situations:
Advantages:
- Excellent contrast even in the strongest sun light
- People around take you as a very intelligent person (in particular if you read a 1600 pages novel by Thomas Pynchon)
- Sand wont cause permanent damage to it, but can temporarily get stucked between the pages
- Operates with renewable energy (sun light)
Disadvantages:
- Reading in dark environment requires an extra light source
- Strong wind will turn over pages unwantedly or even tear pages
- with bad vision, one needs spectacles
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