Book Notes: Thoughts on Balancing Books and eReaders

Welcome to another edition of Book Notes. Today I’m taking a different direction than what I have shared in the past with something that has been on my heart and mind lately… balancing books and eReaders.

I’m also opening it up again for you to share your book related posts. I love to read your recommendations and reviews, my to-read list is constantly growing! Thanks for taking the time to join in on the community of book lovers in sharing the love of reading.

A few years ago I made the bold statement that I would never own an eReader. I am now eating my words!

I love books. I love the way they feel in my hands. I love browsing the bookstore examining all those covers, and yes I do admit, that I almost always judge a book by the cover, but the thought of reading a book on an electronic device just sounded crazy to me.

Then I had my first son and I quickly discovered just how much time nursing would take and there is only so much TV I could stomach, but I hadn’t mastered the ability to be able to hold a book and turn the page with one hand while holding my nursing baby in the other.

I remember other moms talking about their Kindles in a breastfeeding support group I was in. They were all talking about how easy it was to read with one hand. I was intrigued, but also skeptical. I didn’t want to betray one of my greatest loves by selling out and going the trendy way, because at the time I sincerely thought that eReaders were just a “trend”.

Then Amazon announced that they were rolling out the Kindle Fire (the original) as a way to compete with the iPad. Again I was intrigued, a way to read books and catch up on my favorite blogs and Facebook without having to sit at the computer (this was before I had my Smart phone).

Are you seeing the pattern here, I may have been one of the only young adults without any of the latest gadgets and I was perfectly fine with that at the time (boy do I miss those good old days!) 🙂

For my birthday that year I surrendered and my husband bought me the Kindle Fire and my world have forever changed (doesn’t that sound dramatic!) What was once something that I had fought against became something that was always at my side.  I now had the ability to read with one hand while I nursed. I also discovered just how many eBooks were free or heavily discounted thanks to not having to pay for printing.

That was almost 3 years ago, since then the amount of books that I have read has sky rocketed. Over the past few years I have read more than 150 books with most of them being on my Kindle. For some strange reason I have found that I read books quicker in electronic form. I have no idea why but it’s true (although I’m going to put my money on the fact that out of those 3 years I was nursing about 80% of that time.)

Despite how much I love my Kindle and the ability to have hundreds of thousands books available at the click of a button, I’m still deeply in love with traditional hardback (and paperback) books. I like balancing my time reading physical books for the main reason that my kids need to see me reading “real” books.

Not that I view eBooks as not real, but my kids are not yet old to make that connection. When they see me with my Kindle they might not be aware that what I’m actually doing is reading. While I do tell my son I am reading when he asks what I’m looking at, I do think it’s a hard concept for little ones to grasp. To help with this understanding I have also downloaded several children’s books on my Kindle to periodically read with him. But I spend most of our reading time together reading actual books.

With technology ever changing and becoming more of a focus on our lives I’m not blind to the fact that actual books might very well be replaced by eReaders in my life (that’s a very sad thought). A world without actual books is something that I don’t long for, and to be honest I have a really hard time ever believing that books will not be around.

So I will continue to teach my children to love reading books and model for them as well. I will continue to find the balance between reading on my Kindle and reading from the stacks of books on my bookshelves.

What is your favorite way to read books currently? How do you balance between reading books and eBooks?