Book Talk: Ereaders vs. Physical Books

There's so much controversy in the book world between which format is better, Ereaders or Physical books? I admit, I was strongly against Ereaders when they first came out. I thought they took the experience of reading away. That changed when I actually got one.

I had a feeling my dad was going to get me one for Christmas, which he did. But he didn't give me a nook or a kindle, I got one of those knock offs. Still, it was an Ereader I was grateful to have. It was great. I spent many hours playing with it and tried to figure out all the settings. It was fantastic until I couldn't turn it on again.  I tried to google how to fix it but nothing worked, I charged it countless times over the span of about six months. No one in my family got it to work either.

Then this year, my grandma got me current nook for my sweet sixteen. Once I actually read a few books from it, I realized that the book won't change just because the words are on a screen instead of printed on paper. It's still the same story, characters, lessons being told.

What I absolutely love about my nook is that it has internet on it. You are able to get apps like goodreads so I can check on what a book is about, track my progress, and see what my friends are reading. Some of my apps are for school too. My English class uses Evernote religiously. Since I started this blog, I can start posts on my nook, save them, and then all I have to do is add pictures on my computer and they're ready to post. But there are time waiters like twitter, youtube, google. It's hard to do homework when all that is at your finger tips.

Physical books will always hold a place in my heart. They won't die, don't need to charged, and can be lent and given freely. On a nook only certain books are able to be lent out and you get them for a limited amount of time. Same thing goes for ebooks from the library.

I love the look of a well stocked bookshelf. I know my own room has precariously high stacks of well-loved paperbacks on the floor. Books are one of things that you can just collect to no end and not look crazy. If you have hundreds of unicorns in you living room, I'm sure you'd get some weird looks.

Places like public libraries need time to keep up with the new technology in reading. My library does have ebooks, but the selection is scarce. I'm much more
likely to get a wider selection of physical books, and might I add faster than if I wait for many people finish the one ebook.

Then again, a book can't glow in the dark. Those clip on book lights are a pain, and you have to spend like $15 to replace them. If you share a room like I do, then you would know the constant argument about whether or not to keep a lamp on.

There, I said all the pros and cone of both Ereaders and physical books. I can probably think of more, but this post is getting really long. I feel like I'm writing an unstructured essay.