I don’t recall reading very much as a child. Whilst my sisters would troop to the library on a regular basis, I don’t really remember sharing their passion for reading at such an age. Even throughout secondary school, I don’t recall reading a great deal – more a ‘you have to’ kind of mentality, as I read my way through the texts needed for the various classes. One of my English teachers had such a great phrase which has stuck with me, as it is only since my late teens that I understand it’s importance. He simply would repeat at the beginning of each lesson “If you’re reading a good book, you’re not wasting time” – at the time I would merely yawn and pretend to read, in my adolescent ironic way of wasting time whilst reading…It was only when I got to Unversity that I ‘got it’ – and realised the joy of reading. Not just a joy, but a consuming passion, and anyone that enjoys little more than curling up with a good book will know exactly what I mean here. Perhaps I’d never really bothered to think about it much, or perhaps it was being confronted by the largest collection of books I had ever seen in Glasgow University library and the realisation that all the books in this section (covering half of one floor!) were all written about my area of interest was a revelation.
As a post-graduate, I was privileged enough to enjoy the experence of spending time researching in the Bodlean Library in Oxford. There was something wonderful about such an ancient institution whose catalogue was kept in huge paper based directories, and requesting a number of titles involved someone visiting the ’stacks’ held underground to bring it for me to read.
Why am I telling you about this now?
A couple of weeks ago I downloaded ‘Stanza’ for my iPhone and started reading 1984. Whilst I marvel at the technological wonder that allows me to change the font, size and colour of text on the page, there is something missing – not sure if it’s the actual pages, or knowing how far through a book you’ve got, but there’s something not quite right. I do love the fact that on the iPhone (or any other e-Reader for that matter) you don’t need an additional light source, as the page is lit up, but I’m still not entirely sold on the prospect of reading my next ‘book’ on the iPhone. Is this the same feeling I had when moving from LP to CD? Not really. I enjoyed the improved sound quality, but missed the gatefold album covers. Will I feel the same about reading on my iPhone? Time will tell.
photocredit: JL!
