Welcome to the first in a series of little and lively debates by myself and the Pamflet girls. To usher in the New Year we start with something close to all of our hearts – books and how you like to read them. As you will see I am a true Kindle convert while Phoebe Frangoul – one half of of Pamflet – is die-hard for real books. We hope you enjoy the polemic! And do tell us which side you're on in the comments below.
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| My beloved Kindle! |
For The eReader
Stylonylon: I’ve been a bookworm for most of my life. Curled up in my little book corner in my bedroom wolfing down Jane Austen and George Eliot from a very young age. And for goodness sake, my first job was in book publishing, assisting with book cover design, writing blurbs and choosing fonts. My point is, I do love real books, the feel, the texture, the paper. I even tweeted a picture of the beautiful fabric Penguin Classics hardbacks last weekend. But dare I say it, if I had to choose between real books and a Kindle in hand, I’d take the latter. When the Kindle first came out I knew I had to have one. The prospect of hundreds, nay, thousands of books on one sleek little screen of technology was intoxicating. It was like being catapulted into the future and makes total sense in this age of information at your fingertips anytime, anywhere. In my first year of owning a Kindle (sorry Nook, Kobo and others, you came out later), I didn’t pick up a real book. And let it be known that I read more books that year than I had for a long while. Reading that soothing electronic ink (so easy on the eye, sorry iPad your screen is too bright for real reading) while holding something lighter than any book I’ve ever known was, still is, an incredibly exciting experience. Marry that to being able to download almost any book in minutes and slip an entire library into your bag whenever you leave the house at no cost to space, why would you not?
Kindle Books I’ve Read and Loved
The Game of Thrones series, George R. R. Martin (Yes, all of them)
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (YA bliss!)
A Visit From The Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
How to Be A Woman, Caitlin Moran
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| Phoebe's colour-coordinated books |
For The Real Book
Phoebe from Pamflet: One wall of my living room is totally covered in shelvesthat contain books - hundreds of them. This eclectic mix (Tristram Shandy nextto Tolkien) is the product of an English Lit degree & Masters-worth blendedwith my husband's hilariously geeky collection. I arranged them in blocks of colour which makes it almost impossible to findanything (unless you can remember the colour of a particular tome's spine) butlooks amazing and also means I encounter intriguing things to read or re-readevery day.It's not the same as having a teetering stack of plastic CD cases collectingdust and cluttering up the floor because, to me, books - paperback, hardback,big, small - are beautiful objects in their own right. The way they smell andfeel, the associations I have with each individual one - where I found it, whogave it to me and when - make them a physical history of my life. If you wantto know who I am, just look at the shelves. You couldn't really start scrollingthrough someone's ereader in the same way, it'd feel impolite! In fact, it’s not just my life - I own books that my parentsgave to each other when they were dating - i can see the messages they wrote toeach other in the fly-leaves - words from a time before i existed speaking tome from the past. How could you replicate that in pixels? The books are starting to take over, creeping across every flat surface, but Idon't care – we’ll always make room –, I'm happy to throw myself into thepapery embrace of all this lovely lit. This isn’t to say I’m precious about mybooks - in fact, quite the opposite. I ruthlessly break their spines and turndown the corners of pages without flinching. I like being able to take a stackof books on holiday and casually abuse them on the beach - dripping seawater,sand and sun cream on pages that crinkle & crack in the heat. I'd be fartoo nervous to treat a Kindle in such a casual fashion. Another reason I couldn’t get on with an ereader is you can't get many old,obscure titles in digital form yet - when it comes to hunting down someforgotten mid-century female author of genteel domestic drama, second hand bookshops(and their presence on Amazon) are my friends. I just can't imagine my world without all those books in it – replacing themwith a single, sleek piece of technology would appeal to my love of order andlogic, but not my heart and soul.
Real Books I’ve Read and Loved
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Village School, Village Diary and Storm in the Village by Miss Read (literary prozac - gentle mid-century novels set in a tiny Cotswolds village, SO beautiful and funny!)
I've also been guilty of re-reading (for the millionth time) some of Margery Allingham's Campion novels, including Traitor's Purse.
Whose side are you on? Do you prefer real books or eReaders?
Tell us in the comments below!
