I finished reading a 600+ page book on my iPad. (Skippy Dies, Paul Murray) I'm not sure if the experience was great or not, I'm still undecided. On one hand I'd obviously much rather read a tangible book and flip real pages, nothing will ever replace that. But on the other hand I do like that I have one less finished book rattling underneath my bed. I also like that I'm not contributing to the existing volume of stuff I already own.
I love that I can digitally purchase pretty much any book at any given moment with the lazy click of a button. I mean now I can be super frivolous about my reading, reading both high and lowbrow, without judgement.
BUT...I really hated that I couldn't flip to the end really quick to skim quickly and see who dies, and what actually ends up happening. (yes, Skippy dies but who else?!) Yeah, I do that. I'm not adverse to spoilers. Anyway someone said well couldn't I do that on my iPad? Yeah sure, but it doesn't compare to how fast you can do it, the old fashioned way. No damn user interface to navigate. When I'm not at work I don't even want to deal with that shit.
I also didn't like that I had no concept of how far along I was in the novel. I've seen Skippy Dies in bookstores several times before, so I know how fat it is. So it really bothered me to feel like I was reading endlessly on a treadmill. In a normal book I rarely pay attention to the page numbers but I was constantly doing math, dividing, figuring out percentages, to mentally visualize how many centimeters of the book I had read. It was really weird. I don't like it.
But I'm going to continue to read new novels this way, and if I really fall in love with a book I'll purchase the real book and add it to my shelf.
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