I inwardly wince each time I read or hear someone end their experience of an e-book reader with a statement along the lines of "this is a good device but I love real books". That makes me sad for two reasons - first, it implies that the ones taking to the devices don't really love the "dead-tree" books and second, the conclusion wasn't arrived at after a small period of time when the reading habits were observed in light of the usage of the device.

The convenience that any e-book reader provides could perhaps be simplistically compared with the portable music player devices. Everyone crams up their device with all sorts of music and playlists with the intent that at any point when the urge to listen to music kicks in, one isn't left high-and-dry because the particular piece wasn't present. I kind of learnt it the hard way (or, was it the fun way ?) during my last visit to Kolkata. Earlier, each visit used to have a number of days of the multiplied by 1.5 number of books or, if that was difficult then I'd dip into the local bookstores to get them. This time around not only did I squeeze in some good amount of reading (during Pujas with a cold no less), I could also resist the temptation to visit the bookstores.

The e-book readers have a couple of problems probably peculiar to me though. Things like regional language books being unavailable, not all books being available in an e-book format, quirky prices of e-books (on Amazon, the cute "prices set by the publisher" does little to assuage the anger), not all books being available to a specific region and, more importantly, lack of portability between e-book retailers. However, in spite of all such hindrances, I seem to have managed to do fairly well this year And, more importantly, I haven't felt that I was missing anything given that my e-book reader doesn't render color :)

Unless the reading habits and book purchases are studied, figuring out whether the device would actually be useful isn't going to work out. Meanwhile, I do love my "real books". For example, I couldn't even imagine a Tufte book in an e-book reader format. But then, if, like me, you end up having to shift residences on and off, you wouldn't want to look at the faces of the packers-n-movers folks when they encounter stacks of boxes that are really far too heavy.