So I've realized something: I read a lot more when I have physical books than when I just have stuff thrown onto my iPad. And while it's a lot less convenient to carry around, physical books still have a draw for me that ebooks don't.
Now, that's not to say I have an issue with ebooks by any stretch. I love that I can take hundreds or more books with me anywhere I go with just a thing that I can (kinda tightly) fit into my back pocket. I love that there's a lot more options for interactingness, which is a word I think I just made up, in ebooks over physical books. I can only imagine how fucking badass a Choose Your Own Adventure book could be in ebook format. It' could be truly limitless. I love how an author can update a book after it's published and, as long as they're just editing the same item on the Kindle store or iBooks store or whatever, you just gotta update the version you have and all of a sudden, major edits just pop up on your device without having to go and buy a new copy.
Not to mention how you can integrate media of all sorts into an ebook that is just not possible with a physical book. It's great. Want a certain song playing in the background or to set a mood with media instead of words? You can do that with an ebook when it's not really an option for a physical book.
But there's still something about holding a book in your hands. Smelling the pages. Feeling the texture. Feeling how much or how little you have left to read. Flipping from page to page. That's something that you can't do with an ebook.
Or setting them up on a shelf or in a box with dozens of other books. With an ebook, it's just another file in a whole folder filled with them.
Having it staring you in the face when you put it down on the end table and it tempting or demanding you to pick it back up and finish it. There's none of that constant reminder when you've got an ebook on your tablet or phone or kindle. There's no taunting of a book cover that says "fucking read me, asshole! You're not done yet!" the way there is with the physical book.
And that's not to mention that sometimes you don't WANT a different version of a book that's been updated. Sometimes there's something refreshing or quaint about the little mistakes or incompleteness of the original version. Like a first edition. The oldness of the pages or for truly antique books, the idiosyncrasies of the original printer that make it unique.
I don't know... it's why I'm always torn and why I often wish that Amazon or Barnes & Noble or whoever would do something like Hollywood has done with their system. Where you get a download code for a digital copy when you buy a new dvd, but for books. So when you order a book from Amazon or something, it automatically shows up on your kindle account so you can start it now while you wait for the physical copy to arrive from the retailer. That way, when you're at home, you can read the physical copy but when you've got to go somewhere but want to carry the book with you, you just throw your kindle in your pocket or bag or car and you don't have to carry a bunch of books around with you.
It's weird that the Comic book industry is the only one to have even kinda figured this out yet. And even their system is imperfect. But it's getting there. And maybe one day in the future, we won't have to balance our desire to carry our things with our desire to actually own physical things.
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