Musing Monday (December 16)

Hosted by Should Be Reading
Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…• Describe one of your reading habits.

• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).

• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!

• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.

• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!

• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

My musing is about physical books versus eBooks.

I have owned a kindle for over three years now, despite resisting and stating that I preferred my books to be real books, once I was given one I was rapidly converted. After all, it is lighter making reading in bed easier, it holds lots of books so travelling is easier and there are some great deals out there. I have never disputed that the lack of sharing books with my friends has diminished or that my innate nosiness about what everyone else is reading has been reduced now most people read on their eReaders in public but these negatives were outweighed by the positives… until this weekend.

I started reading The Truth About Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell when I realised that this was the ‘sort’ of book which was meant to be read in the physical format. Now I can’t give you the reason why this particular book caused this feeling but I also can’t deny that sitting with the book held in both hands, turning the pages felt very different to reading it via my kindle. This is a feeling I have missed.

I suppose the reason why it has taken so long to come to this realisation is because until the Amazon Vine program stopped offering a large number of books in its newsletters my reading was still roughly 50/50 between types but for the last few months the majority of my fiction reading has been on my kindle.

If I’m honest I rarely read away from home, I don’t get the spare time during the day to read a few pages so although my kindle is carted around in my handbag, it rarely gets taken out so for me that part of its convenience is wasted.

I still have a number of physical books that are unread which I now vow to make time to read in 2014 along with a greater appreciation that I still want the choice of both mediums. Plus I really want these cool bookmarks from The Literary Gift Company and that’s not going to happen if I don’t read real books!