It’s fair to say that when it comes to books, I’m an old-school guy (if, that is, a 36-year-old can even be old school yet). I started reading at a very young age, and to this day I almost always have a book within easy reach. Some of my fondest memories are centered around the written word – perusing microfiche at both the public library and the bookstore I worked at in high school to see what books were forthcoming; hunting through stacks and stacks of used books at second-hand stores, hoping to find a diamond in the rough and inwardly doing cartwheels when I did; reading a book that had a profound emotional impact on me, whether it be laughter or tears, shock or disgust.
Until a few years ago, I literally had every single book I’d ever read and/or purchased stored in boxes in my crawlspace at home. They were my most prized possessions, ranging from the $.25 pulp novel from the days of yesteryear to the $300+ signed limited edition hardcover with the fancy endpapers and breath-taking illustrations. While some books were ordered from places like Shocklines and Camelot Books, or occasionally direct from the publisher, for the most part they were all purchased in a store that I had visited. As places like Amazon and eBay came online and then made book-buying a breeze, I did my very best to stay away from them unless I really wanted to read something that I hadn’t been able to find in my familiar haunts. Why is this? Because I liked being in the stores, scanning shelves, digging in bins, holding the books in my hands, flipping through the blurbs and the synopses. It felt right, somehow. A much more personal experience where the cashiers in the smaller places knew you by name and may even go out on a limb and recommend something to you. Online shopping always struck me as cold and impersonal, sucking the fun out of the hunt. I did it when I had to, but didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.
Over the years I’ve evolved as a reader. That crawlspace full of books is gone. I’m down to one lowly box of old paperbacks I haven’t had time to read yet. The rest have all been sold online (how’s that for hypocrisy?) or at Half-Price Books. I just got to a point where I was sick of lugging the things around from place to place, especially when I almost never reread a book anyway. Happily, I’ve also gotten rid of the nasty habit of finishing any book I started. There was a time that if I read the first page, I made myself sit down and read the whole thing, no matter how dreadful the story was. I’m not sure what flipped the switch, but thank God I don’t fall into that trap anymore. Life is too short to get bogged down by something I don’t enjoy.
Perhaps the biggest evolution is my foray into e-reading.
Herein begins the self-loathing.
I believe the first e-book I read was Stephen King’s THE PLANT, and the only reason I read it that way was because it was the only format available. While I thoroughly enjoyed the story, I most definitely did not enjoy reading at the computer. Prior to early 2012, I could count the number of e-books I’d read on one hand. I had no desire to move into the electronic medium and give up my books, nor did I ever think I would.
And yet, I found myself walking down the e-reader aisles and peeking at the devices from time-to-time. I knew the flashy Nooks, Kindles, and iPads weren’t for me. I stare at a computer screen all day for work, and I did not want to read on a device that mimicked a computer monitor. But the simple e-readers, with their e-ink technology, actually look like the pages of a book. Add in the fact that e-books are generally cheaper than physical books these days, and eventually the temptation to try one of the devices got to be too much. So, I dropped $100 on the cheapest version of the Nook and took the plunge, telling myself that I’d still buy most of my books as real copies, and save the Nook for e-only stories (I had my eye on a bunch of out-of-print pulps that were no longer in print but had become available online). And at first, that’s the way it was.
But ever so slowly, my reading habits changed. Instead of sticking to the e-only King story MILE 81 and the OOP version of Bill Pronzini’s UNDERCURRENT, I started downloading more. And more. Not only that, I was spending time perusing the online store for long-desired books that I’d never been able to track down. Before long, I had over 100 e-books on my device.
And I was ashamed.
Silly, right? Well, it didn’t (and, at times, still doesn’t) feel silly to me. This damned Nook screams in the face of the way I like to read! I find myself staying away from bookstores because I can find everything I want online and download it in an instant, the very thing that hurts brick-and-mortal stores and is probably a factor in why places like my beloved Dreamhaven bookstore went away. I no longer have a battered paperback I can pass along to a friend when I want to introduce them to a new author. E-books don’t have that new (or, in the case of a used book, that musty) smell that I love. No sexy endpapers. No easy-to-see illustrations on the device I use. No autographs. No thrill of the hunt. Honest to God, I hate, hate, hate everything these fuckin’ devices stand for!
And yet…deep down….I love them.
I’m reading books I’ve been wanting for years. I have my entire library at my fingertips, and if nothing in it grabs me at that moment, then I can instantly download something else. I’m buying a lot of books that the author is now getting paid for (however negligible an e-book royalty is) whereas all the used books in my collection netted them nothing. I like being able to eat my meals or exercise without having to tie up my hands flipping pages. I like being able to increase the font size as opposed to feeling like I need a magnifying glass for some of the paperbacks I used to read. I like saving a few bucks. All these and more are why I haven’t bought a physical book in many, many months and I have my Nook attached to my hip wherever I go.
I know a lot of people say e-reading isn’t for them. Hell, a year ago I said it wasn’t for me either. But by taking a looooooong leap of faith and finding an e-reader that worked for me (again, a backlit monitor-like screen would be a deal-breaker for me), I was able to find an enjoyable reading experience that gives me access to so many more books than I was able to find before. I would encourage the old standard-bearers such as myself to give it a shot sometime, even if it means borrowing someone’s device to see if you can find a fit. While they will never replace my love for physical books, e-readers are well worth the price of admission when it comes to tracking down hard-to-find OOP titles at reasonable prices as well as ease of use and convenience.
Now excuse me while I crank up Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and read the fourth Nameless Detective novel…
Written by Andrew Monge
Until a few years ago, I literally had every single book I’d ever read and/or purchased stored in boxes in my crawlspace at home. They were my most prized possessions, ranging from the $.25 pulp novel from the days of yesteryear to the $300+ signed limited edition hardcover with the fancy endpapers and breath-taking illustrations. While some books were ordered from places like Shocklines and Camelot Books, or occasionally direct from the publisher, for the most part they were all purchased in a store that I had visited. As places like Amazon and eBay came online and then made book-buying a breeze, I did my very best to stay away from them unless I really wanted to read something that I hadn’t been able to find in my familiar haunts. Why is this? Because I liked being in the stores, scanning shelves, digging in bins, holding the books in my hands, flipping through the blurbs and the synopses. It felt right, somehow. A much more personal experience where the cashiers in the smaller places knew you by name and may even go out on a limb and recommend something to you. Online shopping always struck me as cold and impersonal, sucking the fun out of the hunt. I did it when I had to, but didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.
Over the years I’ve evolved as a reader. That crawlspace full of books is gone. I’m down to one lowly box of old paperbacks I haven’t had time to read yet. The rest have all been sold online (how’s that for hypocrisy?) or at Half-Price Books. I just got to a point where I was sick of lugging the things around from place to place, especially when I almost never reread a book anyway. Happily, I’ve also gotten rid of the nasty habit of finishing any book I started. There was a time that if I read the first page, I made myself sit down and read the whole thing, no matter how dreadful the story was. I’m not sure what flipped the switch, but thank God I don’t fall into that trap anymore. Life is too short to get bogged down by something I don’t enjoy.
Perhaps the biggest evolution is my foray into e-reading.
Herein begins the self-loathing.
I believe the first e-book I read was Stephen King’s THE PLANT, and the only reason I read it that way was because it was the only format available. While I thoroughly enjoyed the story, I most definitely did not enjoy reading at the computer. Prior to early 2012, I could count the number of e-books I’d read on one hand. I had no desire to move into the electronic medium and give up my books, nor did I ever think I would.
And yet, I found myself walking down the e-reader aisles and peeking at the devices from time-to-time. I knew the flashy Nooks, Kindles, and iPads weren’t for me. I stare at a computer screen all day for work, and I did not want to read on a device that mimicked a computer monitor. But the simple e-readers, with their e-ink technology, actually look like the pages of a book. Add in the fact that e-books are generally cheaper than physical books these days, and eventually the temptation to try one of the devices got to be too much. So, I dropped $100 on the cheapest version of the Nook and took the plunge, telling myself that I’d still buy most of my books as real copies, and save the Nook for e-only stories (I had my eye on a bunch of out-of-print pulps that were no longer in print but had become available online). And at first, that’s the way it was.
But ever so slowly, my reading habits changed. Instead of sticking to the e-only King story MILE 81 and the OOP version of Bill Pronzini’s UNDERCURRENT, I started downloading more. And more. Not only that, I was spending time perusing the online store for long-desired books that I’d never been able to track down. Before long, I had over 100 e-books on my device.
And I was ashamed.
Silly, right? Well, it didn’t (and, at times, still doesn’t) feel silly to me. This damned Nook screams in the face of the way I like to read! I find myself staying away from bookstores because I can find everything I want online and download it in an instant, the very thing that hurts brick-and-mortal stores and is probably a factor in why places like my beloved Dreamhaven bookstore went away. I no longer have a battered paperback I can pass along to a friend when I want to introduce them to a new author. E-books don’t have that new (or, in the case of a used book, that musty) smell that I love. No sexy endpapers. No easy-to-see illustrations on the device I use. No autographs. No thrill of the hunt. Honest to God, I hate, hate, hate everything these fuckin’ devices stand for!
And yet…deep down….I love them.
I’m reading books I’ve been wanting for years. I have my entire library at my fingertips, and if nothing in it grabs me at that moment, then I can instantly download something else. I’m buying a lot of books that the author is now getting paid for (however negligible an e-book royalty is) whereas all the used books in my collection netted them nothing. I like being able to eat my meals or exercise without having to tie up my hands flipping pages. I like being able to increase the font size as opposed to feeling like I need a magnifying glass for some of the paperbacks I used to read. I like saving a few bucks. All these and more are why I haven’t bought a physical book in many, many months and I have my Nook attached to my hip wherever I go.
I know a lot of people say e-reading isn’t for them. Hell, a year ago I said it wasn’t for me either. But by taking a looooooong leap of faith and finding an e-reader that worked for me (again, a backlit monitor-like screen would be a deal-breaker for me), I was able to find an enjoyable reading experience that gives me access to so many more books than I was able to find before. I would encourage the old standard-bearers such as myself to give it a shot sometime, even if it means borrowing someone’s device to see if you can find a fit. While they will never replace my love for physical books, e-readers are well worth the price of admission when it comes to tracking down hard-to-find OOP titles at reasonable prices as well as ease of use and convenience.
Now excuse me while I crank up Joan Jett’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and read the fourth Nameless Detective novel…
Written by Andrew Monge
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