E-book v.s Electronic

    There has been alot of debate between e-reader fans and traditional book fans.  I would like to use this post to weigh in on my opinion.  Now, I have a book addiction, seriously.  I love books, have always loved books, if their was an "AA" for book people I would probably be forced to join by a family intervention.  I don't see this as a problem, but occasionally my budget groans in protest.  When I purchased an Android phone about a year ago, I delved into the world of e-books.  Over the past year I have bought hundreds of e-books, and for my birthday this year my kids finally bought me a Kindle. 
      First for the negatives of e-reading:  I learned early on that buying non-fiction, informational books in electronic format is not satisfying for me.  The e-books of that type are now on my to buy list for a traditional book copy.  The reasons are; first I like to write in and dog ear informational books.  I add my own ideas, and information about the subject in the margin, or underline information I want to find easily.  Even with the highlighting and note applications for Kindle they cannot match the ease of doing it for real in a real book.  I tend to loan non-fiction books more than novels and doing so on an e-reader is either impossible or difficult.  I am known as a lending library to my friends and neighbors and buying on e-book makes me less useful, and I like being useful.  Lastly, and perhaps most shallowly, I like to LOOK at all my books, stacked and lined up on shelves, it makes me happy.  It is similar to the feeling I get in the fall when my basement is brimming with home canned foods, and baskets overflowing with produce saved for winter, or my freezers full of meat.  Also my Android Kindle and Kindle Fire are both backlit so I do get eye strain after a few hours, which can seriously cramp my style.
     On the positive side e-books are perfect in my opinion for novels.   I rarely reread novels, used to be that I would buy them, read them, and then trade them at a local used bookstore for more reading material.  Living so far from town made that difficult and spending a few days to a week without a novel is enough to give me D.T.s.  My Kindle allows me to have instant gratification which is important for an addict like me.  I also like the fact that I do not have to endure ribbing for my choice of reading material if I am reading a romance novel.  Yes, I proudly admit to reading romance, and even following a couple of blogs about romance.  My life sucks a lot of the time, with a critically ill husband for the last 13 years and a severely autistic son, and a well-written (they do exist) romance novel is the perfect escape for me.  I have endured everything from good-natured humor to being accused of consuming 'female porn' so the anonymity of e-books is a relief.  Finally the portability of e-books is appealing to me, when heading to the family reunion I can pre-load my devices with several books and it fits easily into my suitcase.  I will say that I prefer using my Android then my Kindle because the Kindle is too large to hold one handed and is somewhat awkward for in-bed reading.  I buy several books a week and read them on my devices and find it a very good way of aquiring and consuming fiction  Some of the books, if they are exceptional make it on my to buy list for a real copy, but not many.
    I do not believe that electronic books will ever totally eliminate the old fashioned variety, but I feel those who read and those who write books should not totally ignore this new technology.