It cannot be denied; there is something inherently romantic about the idea of sitting outside the Trent Building in the sunshine with a latte and a copy of Jane Eyre. While this is probably the stereotype most people have of English students, when the reality is usually pulling an all-nighter with a stronger cup of coffee reading a novel you were supposed to have read for that morning, these scenarios still both have one thing in common – they involve a book rather than a Kindle.
The whole idea of panic reading, leisurely reading for fun or even the sin of reading off syllabus (not that we have much time for that!) seems so much better with a book than a Kindle. Maybe it’s the feeling of flicking through the pages or that smell of a fresh new book (along with a much needed Starbucks) that almost makes the whole thing seem bearable! On an added note, the massive second year anthologies make excellent door stops, I would like to see a Kindle prop open a similar weight.
“The nightmare of reading a Kindle on the train and losing it or spilling a drink all over it, is soul destroying”
Secondly, as with most technology, they’re expensive and easy to break. The nightmare of reading a Kindle on the train and losing it or spilling a drink all over it, is soul destroying, but at least if it’s a book, although it wouldn’t be great (as book worms tend to be over-protective of their books), chances are you won’t have to spend much to replace it, whether it was a brand new copy from Waterstones or a battered copy from a charity shop. That’s one of the many joys of books, they’re usually replaceable, although it it nonetheless a tragic moment when that happens.
Perhaps it’s just sentimentality talking, but buying books, whether second hand or from supermarkets, is a great experience. Bookshops are wonderful places, filled to the brim with every kind of book that you could wish for, from the trashy holiday romance to the classics, book themed accessories and the occasional coffee shop; they are most people’s idea of heaven. The same cannot be said when ordering or buying a Kindle and they also don’t look nearly as good on a book shelf. This is one of the reasons to indulge in overly priced versions of your favourites, and therefore classic burgundy leather bound covers or the damaged covers through so much re-reading beats the idea of a single Kindle placed upon a shelf looking boring and simplistic.
“Perhaps it’s just sentimentality talking, but buying books, whether second hand or from supermarkets, is a great experience”
As the saying goes, if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it, this is exactly the sentiment behind reading books. ‘Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators’ (Steven Fry March 2009) and really I think this quote says it all. So put down the Kindle and go and pick up a book.
Lizzie Robinson
Image credit: Roberto Ventre via Flickr
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