Booking Through Thursday

Interactive

With the advent (and growing popularity) of eBooks, I’m seeing more and more articles about how much “better” they can be, because they have the option to be interactive … videos, music, glossaries … all sorts of little extra goodies to help “enhance” your reading experience, rather like listening to the Director’s commentary on a DVD of your favorite movie.

How do you feel about that possibility? Does it excite you in a cutting-edge kind of way? Or does it chill you to the bone because that’s not what reading is ABOUT?

Well... I am quite sure I won't be too fond of e-books, even though I admit I have never even tried. They just lack few of the important things about literature: feel and smell.

You can't fondle an e-book, you don't feel the scratchy paper in your fingertips when you turn the page... and I don't dare to think how a reader would look like if you eat when you read (which is fun).

If I want to watch videos I check Youtube or put DVD in player.

And when it comes to commentary: Stephen King does that in his books. In written form. And I enjoy them.

I do enjoy listening his feature commentaries on DVDs, but a movie is a movie. Moving pictures are all nice and such, but books have their charm because they are good at what they are and have been for centuries.

Call me traditionalist, but that is not always a bad thing.