My Experience with digital books

“Books are my best friends”. How often have you heard people stating this line? And best friends, they evolve with you, adjust to your needs and understand you better. Books have just done that over the years. From being delivered on papyrus to growing on papers and now maturing on the electronic medium, books have moulded themselves to suit our comfort of reading. As mankind’s lifestyle transformed from busy to busier, his best friend mutated to stay along with him forever. Hence the advent of digital books, electronic books or e-books, call it by any name.

I too wasn't left untouched by the breeze of digital books. My first electronic book read was a favourite novel on my laptop. There was the obvious awkwardness on the first date with the e-book. I missed the typical texture, smell, touch and weight of a print book, in short the aesthetics. Every now and then my fingers searched for pages to roll over and found the scroll bar instead. My habit of leaving a bookmark between the pages last read or folding the top corner of the page could not be quenched. My printed friend always waited until I closed him but the digital version made me depend on mundane necessities like electricity. While reading in my backyard under the mango tree, it died out suddenly when the laptop breathed its last few breath. The disclosure of the novel’s suspense had to wait till the laptop was alive again which did kill my zeal to certain extent. Yes ! I belong to the high-speed-over-the-internet generation. But unless the pages do not flutter in the wind and the bound cover is not turned over finally and pressed to mark the end of the read, my book reading experience remains incomplete. When I had to share that e-novel with my friend, I was worried about internet connection or availability of a USB device. Luckily, I had both. And when it was the academic e-book I wished if I could scribble those small personal notes here and there between the lines.

Nevertheless, I haven’t rejected e-books entirely for the several other bonuses they offered me. With the evolution of web, smart-mobile and kindle technology, access to e-books and ease of reading has definitely enhanced. Reading has become forevermore portable. E-books adjust to my eyes as I can play with the font size. I am now, only a click away from reading any book, academic or leisure, without having to run over the confusing shelves of the library or hunt the bookstore.

My experience with digital books has neither been overwhelming nor pathetically disappointing. I am at crossroads of the print and digital world of books, along with you all. With digital books I definitely miss out the traditional nuance of book reading. But they have found a space in the inseparable device of my life, the mobile. I only hope, print and digital books find a way out to co-exist in the current situation of eco-face-off.