I am obsessed. I
love technology. I fought it for a while. I loved books, and someone who loves books is supposed to hate new things like iPads and e-readers, right? But the truth is I do love technology, and I always have.
 |
Maxwell Nerdstrom...
remember him? |
Let me say, in case you haven't figured it out, I was a big nerd when I was a kid. Not the Maxwell Nerdstrom from
Saved by the Bell kind of nerd but still, a nerd. I wanted to read all the time. I wanted to be a writer. I started a family newspaper called
The Leslie Gazette (and by family newspaper, I mean for my family, because no one else wanted to be involved in actually creating it...or reading it)
. I alphabetized my books and tried to run a library out of my bedroom for my sisters. I got very excited when we first got a color printer and turned in a paper to my 6th grade English teacher with almost every sentence in a different color (I wish I were making this up).
I think my love of technology started with the creation of my newspaper. We had a computer program designed for kids to write; it turned writing into a sort of game. I remember you could get the computer to read back what you had typed in an automated voice. (We got the pre-Siri voice to read the phrase, "Spectacles testicles wallet and watch" because we heard Austin Powers say it. And it mentioned testicles, so clearly it was funny.) You could write in different fonts, different colors. And you could type in columns. Once I realized that typing in columns was the key to looking like a newspaper, I was in heaven.
And then,
then, I discovered 2-sided printing. Oh my friends, how this changed my life. If you printed your story on both sides of the paper, then it looked like an actual book! You just had to staple it together down the left side and,
voila! You basically had a book ready to go. (This was still helpful as I got older; printing on both sides of the paper allowed to me save money on paper as a poor college student.)
So, even though I balked when Kindles and Nooks became popular, I was already a longtime fan of technology. Yes, I love the feel of a book in my hands. Just a few minutes ago, I almost got distracted by picking up a copy of
One Hundred Years of Solitude that my boyfriend left lying around. It's not an actual Mass Market Edition (you know, the paperbacks that are short and fat and feel so good in your hands) but it's the same size. Anyway, I loved the way it felt and the old, yellowing pages, and I started reading the first page and almost gave up on writing for the night (I'll probably read it after finishing this post). I will never, ever, give up on physical books.
But I still love the idea of e-books and e-readers. I love the eco-friendly, paperless aspect. I love that you can carry tons of books (
and magazines!) with you in one lightweight device. And now that so many people recognize how unfair big chains (cough, Amazon, cough!) are to independent bookstores, there are even online stores like
Kobo Books that sell their own e-readers and allow you to buy e-books through your own local bookstore. (
Square Books is mine; check it out!)
And now that I work in publishing, technology helps me to
create books. How cool is that? I've gotten to do the layout on a couple of book projects now, and even though it gets tedious (Why won't that last sentence fit on this page?! Whyyyyy?!?!?!), I love it. I can choose the font, choose the spacing, and make this computer screen look like a book. Then we send it off to a printer and they send it back as a Real. Book. Or we can create an e-book. Or both. It's even better than my 2-sided printing jobs!
So, I will no longer be ashamed of my love for my iPad, or my phone, or my computer. I wouldn't have a job in publishing without them. Hell, I wouldn't be able to blog without them (and then I couldn't force my writing on all of you, and what kind of world would
that be?). Embracing e-books, tablets, and smart phones does not mean I have to give up on physical books.
I will not choose. I will have both.
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