Many, many books.

I have purchased “many” books over the past six months. The reason I’m saying many is I really don’t want to confess to exactly how many, many is. Some might say my many is too many, some might tell me it’s a little extreme, some might go and check the credit card bill. And yes, I may be referring to my husband as “some”. One of my book purchases was a hard copy – it was a Christmas present. All of the other books were bought via amazon, on my kindle app for iPad.

Without exaggerating, for someone who’s been traveling for the past twelve years, the kindle has been life changing. I have lived in several locations where books were either censored or virtually impossible to buy. Now, with either a kindle,  iPad, or whatever device floats your boat, you can line up in your online store with the rest of the world and download whatever takes your fancy. If you’re sitting in a coffee shop in Azerbaijan scanning through the New York Times best seller list, it’s highly likely you’re going to feel a little less isolated from the rest of the world – well, until they serve you your Ovdukh.

Ebooks to those in remote locations mean you no longer have to wait for the next trip to the city, or if you’re overseas – the next trip “home”. You can join the conversation now. In my book group in Libya we would pre plan who was hosting the next meeting, to match with trips out of the country e.g. “I’ve got a doctors appointment in Malta in May –  so I’ll host in June”. Those days are gone. I will never have to hand carry 12 copies of “The Slap” on to a plane again.

As much as I love my new technology though, there remains an underlying feeling of guilt.

What about the book stores? What about the REAL books – the ones we like to smell and touch. What about that lovely English lady in the book store in Calgary, who read to the little travellers every Tuesday morning. She read with more conviction than Kevin Spacey in Richard III. The same woman who introduced us to the Gruffalo. A book I no longer need as I can now recite it word for word, on my own.

I was reading an article in the New York Times over the weekend, about the struggle of the The United States largest book retailer Barnes and Noble, in a world that has moved towards ebooks and online purchasing. They’ve come up with a device called the Nook. I’m not sure how it will compete but I really want them to be successful, and this is where it all turns hypocritical. I’m a fraud, a user, an empty customer.

I was chatting to a girlfriend recently and we both admitted the same guilty affliction. We love to go to the book store and look – and then we go home and purchase online. I love bookstores (particularly ones that sell coffee). I want to look at all the covers and open and read the dedications, the foreword. I want to disappear in to obscure sections that I wouldn’t usually go to. Sadly, I then want to then go home and purchase my findings on my iPad.

As much as I love paper books, the iPad is so much easier to hold in bed. It fits in to my handbag easily and I can have my email, audiobooks, Facebook, Twitter and newspapers all in the same location. For me, this move is a logical, practical move. It’s paperless and environmentally friendly, it’s available for those in remote locations and ebooks are usually a little cheaper than their paper counterparts. And it appears I’m not the only one feeling this way – ebook sales have now outgrown in store book sales and the figures are rising.  However, ebooks aren’t for everyone.

Yesterday at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, award winning novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen had this to say,


“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”
“My problem with e-book readers is that one minute I’m reading some trashy website, the next minute I’m reading Jane Austen – on the same screen.”


I’ve read one of Jonathon Franzen’s novels – on my iPad. I managed to get through it without having to shoot off to a trashy website and getting confused. I even managed to listen to Franzens interview via podcast with Richard Fidler without switching to 102 classic dribble FM. Technology, for me, has opened my world to more art, more discussion and more books. 


Many, many books. I just can’t tell you how many. 


So if the book shop is gone where will I go to browse and relax, somewhere with the same community feeling, somewhere where the little travellers can sit and explore. Is it possible that we will all head back to the library? Or will that be online as well?




What do you think? What’s the future of book stores? What do you prefer?











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Comments

  1. I just got a Kindle. It is my favourite device, of all time. I have still bought books. Some hardcover show ponys to put on the shelf. I have bought Franzen, local authors, short works about writing, all sorts of writing. I feel sad but then I just look around our groaning shelves and I know, that with two avid readers, we cannot go on buying books. We will end up two old sad people with our books threatening to fall on us, resulting in immediate death.

    I will always buy certain books. Kids books. Philosophy books. Books in hard cover, of which I have a full set of the author’s other works. But on the plane from Hong Kong, in something smaller than my diary, I had more things to read than I had time to read. I can read at work, I can read anything (practically) anywhere.

    It’s the way of the future, may as well influence how it will look.

  2. Jeanne @ Collage of Life says

    I hear you Kirsty, I feel the same way. I live outside of London with so many books at my doorstep it is hard to pass them by. I often look and then go home to order on Amazon. Recently, I have taken to buying them in the bookstore…the small independents…for the memory and also because I hate to see the passing of the local bookshops. They are such an icon around here…a safe haven. 
    Saying that..I have been putting all the classics on my iPad and just downloaded (for free) a number of books by Charles Dickens. We are celebrating his 200th birthday this year, it is Dickens mania at the moment.. 

    We are moving to Ho Chi Minh in July…life will be very different. I imagine I will be following in your footsteps…perhaps that is why I want to support the small independents for as long as I can and then one day, in a library..far, far away, I can flip thru my books with a smile.

    Best wishes…

    Jeanne xx

  3. For anyone who lives abroad, a Kindle is brilliant. I can’t get hold of books in English here so by buying off Amazon or manybooks.net I’m not actually doing a bookshop out of a purchase. My conscience is clean. 🙂

    I also have no more room for books and don’t like to throw any away.

  4. This is an interesting one Kirsty. I don’t have a kindle but I do own an iPad and have tried to read books on this. I just can’t do it! For me there’s nothing like a ‘real’ book.
    My confession is that I also buy my real books on line. I will hunt around amazon, book depository, or fishpond to find the best deal, which unfortunately for the book stores is usually much cheaper.
    I watched “You’ve got mail” recently” and it made me feel really guilty.
    x

  5. Kathlockett says

    Love Chunks and Sapphire both have iPads and have admitted that they don’t enjoy reading novels on them. They’re more fun for websites and games methinks.  I don’t own a kindle but the evidence and accolades are growing and, being an expat like you, there’s only so much room for ‘real’ books – and those have so far been sourced from flea markets because I love a good bargain. And the feel and smell of a book that needs no re-charging and costs less than twenty bucks (I’m into second hand deals as I said) seems to be hard to beat, but I know that publishers will love e-books because they’ll save so much on printing….

    …so….

    ….. I might put in a subtle request for a Kindle for my birthday….

  6. Great post – it captures all my own conflicted feelings about ebooks!

  7. Real books are the best. NZ libraries  rock my world. I always ‘pre-order’ books online to take out when I go back. When I’m home in Kyoto I go to the local book exchange at the Y.W.C.A. However, having recently one a Samsung tablet I am going to look into this ebook business:)

  8. I have yet to delve into the world of books on a screen. I have no ipad, no kindle, just books made of paper, real pages I can turn and between which I can place one of my many gorgeous bookmarks, and with corners I can fold down when something really takes my fancy that I may want to revisit and savour a moment longer. Maybe the day will come when I’ll turn a virtual page… but not yet.

  9. Very interesting article! I love paperbooks and cannot read books or longer articles on a screen. However, for practical reasons ebooks are great!
    Lisa

  10. I was a reluctant convert.  When a kindle was suggested as a Mothers’ Day gift i said ‘no thank you, i love my real books’.   Nope  – the gift givers were pretty sure this was a good gift.  It sat for quite awhile until finally i set it up and downloaded that first book.  I have not read a paper book since.  I liked it so much i put away the paper book i was reading at the time and purchased it in the e-version.    I felt rather guilty how quickly  and completely I abandoned my much loved books.    The big box book stores here changing to fit the times.  The books are still there but rather than being 80% of the inventory they are more like 50% and it seems to me the travel, magazine and cooking sections have grown larger.  Perhaps because these types of reads not quite as appealing on ebooks?   Worry more for local independents.  How will these little boutiques survive?  Not sure they can on books alone.  

  11. PaulineSinn says

    Kirsty, I concur!!!! 
    I read the same NYT article, feeling rather indignant over the whole thing, and then popped open the screen on my iPad to read my current book… 
    I LOVE book stores. But after some reluctance, I not only found I enjoyed reading on the iPad (for all of the reasons you have said), but also, now when someone recommends a book, I look it up and buy it! In the past I gave a vague, “I’ll remember that one” only to place it in my ‘I have four children’ brain, never to be found again. I love that my own ‘library’ builds at a slightly faster pace than my reading can – I always have books I’m excited about it the queue.Well done on capturing a common dilemma! x

  12. Somehow when you said the lady who reads for traveler every Tuesday, I remember You’ve Got Mail 🙂 It’s sad to close a book store for being defeated by a bigger one and now the bigger one is going down the hill too because of ebook. I always love books. Got plenty in my hometown. But because we are now a bit nomadic, to carry too many book will not be convenient. To ship is also costly. So ebook is so far the great solution. Maybe one day there would be online library too! Who knows 🙂 of course the hardcopy should be like the queen, the one that we handle so gently and preciously.

  13. I also read that article!
    We don’t buy new books as a rule, we have a beautiful secondhand bookshop where we buy from.  No kindle in our house as yet, but I see a kindle in my near future 🙂

  14. I adore my kindle and got it precisely because we’ll be moving overseas soon.  I don’t buy that many books since my local library allows me to borrow books on kindle. 

    I don’t think I have a less magical experience reading my favorite books because it is on-screen instead of on paper.  Should I ever be lucky enough to publish a book I can’t imagine that I’d care whether people read it electronically or on paper. 

  15.   I have had a Sony Reader for about seven years . It was originally bought so my husband could no longer complain about the suitcase full of books that accompanied our travels. Yet, when I come home, I find myself buying real books (I am a real book hound!) simply because I like the feel of paper under my fingers. Bookselling is a difficult position to be in these days, and when a business like Barnes & Noble starts making noises, I wonder, will the next generation of  children completely bypass the experience of looking at and touching wonderful picture books. I hope not!

  16. Kirsty, there is something about the way you write, the way you construct your posts that always brings a tear. You are writing about books, but it is so gentle and thought provoking that I am moved to tears. I am either a massive sook, or you are a great, compelling writer…

  17. I got the nook tablet for Christmas and I adore it. Husband has the kindle equivalent. I am also buying at a rapid rate – cheaper and so easy to press that buy button ie dangerous in a wonderful way. 
    I went on a paper book buying binge on return to the US because, well, I’m hopeless and they are so much cheaper than in Australia so it has always been something I love about living in the US. And then Borders was going out of business and I am truly afraid to count in any way how many books I bought in that closing down sale. I am stocked for many years to come! 
    If you haven’t already you must read Adele Horin’s recent piece on same topic and similar perspective to you in some ways. I think you are so right that for a traveler, especially one like you in a more exotic location this e-business is just brilliant. 
    Beautiful piece – again!
    Michelle 

  18. I imagine there were arguments to and fro about steam engines.  About word processors versus typing pools.  About stenographers versus dictaphones.  There’s a million professions that have disappeared – chimney sweeps, scullery maids (yes I’ve been reading Victorian novels).

    It’s just the way it is.  Everything ebbs and flows.  Life (and technology) marches on. 

    Yes, I feel sad for the book shop owners, just as I feel sad for the small town shop owners who are slowly going out of business because of the Big W’s and the Walmarts. 

    I’m not sure what the answer is.  Like you, I’m conflicted. 

  19. I understand the reasoning behind e-books. Though, I have never read a book on my iPad, till date, my cousin swears by her Kindle and, now iPad, while travelling. 
    Truth be told, I still need ink on paper and shelves to browse through. 

  20. I adore real books and am staying away from kindles and suchlike. I love the look, the feel, the story of 2nd hand books, buying well loved books. I just find the hard copy so romantic, the e-version isn’t the same

  21. Sine Thieme says

    Amen to all of that. I read the same article in the New York Times and had the same guilty feeling – I’ll go to the bookstore and take a picture of the book with my iphone, then go home to order it online. I always think I can be forgiven though because books are really expensive in South Africa, or you can’t find them at all. Though I must say, my Kindle doesn’t ever feel quite as good as a real book. For some reason I can never remember books that I read on the Kindle as well as real books, because to remember a book you have to stare at its cover day in and day out, and on the Kindle you never do that. You just stare at the stupid author pictures that come up when it’s turned off. Anyway, I don’t know the answer either, it’s just progress I guess and we will have to see where it takes us. As long as no one takes reading away from me…

  22. Papertigger1 says

    I will read anything that stays still long enough. I adore books of many types, cereal boxes, fine print on contracts, billboards on buses and the instructions on my medications. My husband says I’m the only car owner that reads every manual cover to cover I *really* love to read. Every format has its advantages and disadvantages. My Kindle can’t be read in the dark, my iPad is more fragile than my physical books and my physical books take up so much space that they overflow into nearly every room. If indeed an author places each word just so with exact page specifications, they won’t ever allow it to go to e-book format anyway. A new author that has trouble getting a publishing contract might go for e-book only format. I don’t want to miss either one. 

    I’ll continue to hang out at bookstores and libraries for the lovely smell & the ability to explore subject matter by wandering the aisles. I’ll continue to hang out on Amazon to see what others are recommending and find new ideas. I’ll continue to read the papers on my iPad and Voice of America on my laptop. I’ll read blogs on my phone in spare moments of time. And I’ll still read the ads on the bus! I recently received a gift of “The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared” by Alice Ozma and I cannot recommend it enough. My father passed away last spring and he and I always shared books and reading so the gift is very timely. I can only hope my kids remember the many, many hours I spent reading aloud to them with as much love as Ms. Ozma remembers her dad reading to her.

  23. Chapters Indigo, Signal Hill?  Gosh I miss it that train table and Star Bucks.  AND I purchased many many books from recommendations from an English lady.

  24. Yes!!! That’s exactly where I was. She was so lovely – I really miss her and that incredibly cute little boat that they all used to sit in. I had 3 under 4 in those days and I can still remember the relief of dropping them in the boat and bolting for a coffee at Starbucks. How amazing that you were at the same place!

  25. Off to download “The Reading Promise” now. xx

  26. So glad it’s not just me taking pics of books – on our last trip to Oz I spent a good 10 minutes in the book store taking photos of all the books I was about to go home and download. What will we do when they take book shops out of airports? See – there’s that guilt again. 

  27. I understand, I felt exactly the same way. I’m very surprised at how quickly I made the switch. I gave G Steve Jobbs biography for Christmas and he handed it too me the other day asking if I wanted to read it. It is ENORMOUS and all I could think was “ugh it’s so heavy”. I know I know. I’m a disgrace.

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