Amazon Kindle
I wouldn’t have thought of myself as a Kindle kind of person—swearing as I did by Cicero’s edict that a room without books is like a body without a soul. I nevertheless got myself the Kindle, figuring out that the great Roman statesman would have considered it … and so the soul, albeit the digital one.
Apart from the obvious bonuses of the Kindle — storage, accessibility and the dictionary among others — I found the Kindle works for me in three spectacular ways. For one, I have all my favourite works of literature at my fingertips. Let me explain — I keep returning to Hamlet , T. S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land , Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 . I have three or four physical copies of them around me — on the bedside table, at my desk, among my books. With the Kindle, however, whenever I feel the need to spend time with the melancholy Dane or Doc Daneeka or in the pleasure dome in Xanadu, instead of hunting among my books or in the desk or shelves, all I need to do is tap the Kindle and voila! I am transfixed like the wedding guest at the sight of the painted ship upon the painted ocean. The second plus is I don’t have to finish reading a terrible book. The physical book, no matter how bad it is, I finish reading simply because it is there and once I put my pretty Alice in Wonderland bookmark, I feel wicked taking it out if I haven’t finished the book. None of that matters in the Kindle. If the book is plodding along through milestones of bad grammar, falling into airplane-size plot holes and peopled with hideously-flat characters, I stop reading and there is no bookmark to retrieve either.
The Kindle also steps in for missing pages. I am rereading Agatha Christie’s Poirot books in chronological order and my copy of the first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles , which I inherited from an aunt, is in rather bad shape. The page describing Hastings' meeting with Poirot in Styles St Mary is missing. So, while I read the physical book, I read about the momentous meeting on the Kindle, making the best of two worlds, which I feel describes reading on the Kindle as well. I am sure Cicero would approve.
MINI ANTHIKAD CHHIBBER
Mobile phone
I like reading articles and occasional long-form narrative pieces, and use the Facebook and Twitter apps on my phone for it. For reading books, I prefer reading on the Kindle or go the old-fashioned way and read a physical book, complete with imaginative book covers, the occasional illustrations and the smell of paper.
I chanced upon a survey conducted by Nielsen in Wall Street Journal that surveyed 2,000 people and discovered 54 per cent of e-book buyers said they used smartphones to read their books at least some of the time. I decided to give it a try, downloaded from Google Books, began shopping and bought a copy of The Great Derangement , to take on climate change by Amitav Ghosh.
On the upside, I found it very convenient initially. I no longer needed to carry huge books or the Kindle and could catch up on reading on the phone on my daily commute. I could finish the book very quickly, and the fact that I was carrying my books on my person all the time was very helpful. The interface was not spectacular though, and every time my eyes would be stressed from staring at the screen for a long time, I could switch the light mode and get an orange tint on screen that reduces the strain. The sync feature also helps to read books across devices.
However, there were downsides too. One of the major issues being the size of the phone, as compared to the Kindle or tablet. Switching fonts was also really tough, and the night mode was still not the impressive. The lack of attractive book covers makes one less inclined to pick up a new book or try out a new author. Of course, like with any device, I miss the physical sensation of finishing a huge book and flipping pages, which the flick on the screen cannot replace.
NIKHIL VARMA
Audiobook
as a lifelong lover of the anticipation aroused by the fresh pages and the nostalgia associated with weathered ones, I eyed the e-reader bandwagon with some suspicion. Being an advocate for the convenience of modern technology, this left me in the strange situation of shying away from my own philosophy that tech-fuelled change is usually good. However, it soon became apparent that my reading habits were taking the hit, and after developing an interest in podcasts as an entertainment source during commutes, I sampled the logical extension, the audiobook. Making use of the one-month free trial Amazon offers on Audible, I promptly made use of my credits to download Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One . The idea was that the performance of the full ensemble cast with the likes of Alan Cumming would enliven Stoker’s elegant prose somewhat. The experiment worked, I was able to power through Jonathan Harker’s uneasy time at the Count”s castle with ease during the train journey, but it was afterwards that the grand plan hit the roadblock. Herein lies the weakness of the audiobook. While it is an excellent companion on a long journey or a regular commute, it is hard to immerse yourself in the listening act in other situations, like lounging at home. While it is acceptable to lie in bed for hours reading the physical copy, my attempt at doing the same with the audiobook which resulted in an uncanny resemblance of the Count”s own night-time state of rest.
The audio format did solve my problem to some extent, but it has turned out to be a specific solution that works only in the particular context. Perhaps, the Mini suggested, the answer is to use both in the situations that suit them best.
SOORAJ RAJMOHAN
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