How Does Reading on Kindle Compare to a Book?

This article is about how reading on a Kindle compares to reading a book. I recently purchased a Kindle for travel. I am an all-out bibliophile. I love printed books, but for extended travels, I knew I had to leave my library behind. For traveling, a Kindle that can hold hundreds of books, and access the internet seemed like the perfect travel companion. [Note- not all Kindles can access the internet. If you want a kindle with internet access, read this hub.]

So, is a Kindle an appropriate medium for Literature? Or is it the death of books as we know it? Can the electronic screen hope to suitably transmit the wit of Austin, the adventurousness of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the. More importantly, will the medium of the Kindle shape the writing style of modern books? I'm friends with a ton of book lovers who, above all, believe in the purity of the printed word. A book is not a book if it's not ink on a paper, has a binding, has a palpable weight to the pages. To them, the rise of Kindles feels like the death of literature.

Reading on a computer screen is different. I'd be lying if I said reading on the internet didn't change the way my eye scans a page, or the way my brain processes information. My mind now has a preference for short, succinct pellets of information, which is certainly a departure from the longer, weaving narratives, and page long paragraphs found in more classic literature. Most modern literature uses shorter, more direct sentences. That's one of the reasons I've grown to love classics- it's a good exercise for my internet age brain. Faulkner publications continue to sell because he has tenure in the "Classic Literature" sphere, but if he tried to publish today, I doubt there'd be much of an audience.

I found to my delight, that reading on a Kindle screen really does feel like reading off a printed page. The no-glow pages, the clean, the sightly gray texture of the screen, and the discrete letters draw my eyes in the same way the pages of a book do. The screen looks rather like a high-tech Etch-a-Sketch. There is no finger-licking and page turning. The book is navigated by turning pages by button. The screen blinks and refreshes on the next page. You can also turn the page back if you want to re-read something.

Sometimes, I even prefer to read on a Kindle. I own some rather hefty volumes, and it's rather nice to carry around a one-thousand page novel in a small, thin casing weighing in at 10 oz. It's a small device, and much easier to curl up with in bed than many larger books.

The weight sits comfortably in my hand, and the Kindle is so cleanly designed that my mind slips into the words on the page, rather than being distracted by the interface or casing. That's one of the nicest things about it. Reading on a Kindle really is quite pleasant, and I actually sometimes prefer to read on a Kindle even if I have a hard copy of the book.

A Kindle tends to have fewer words-per-page than a printed book. I actually find this preferable in a lot of cases. As I said, I have an internet age brain that likes its information short and sweet. Fewer words per page is less overwhelming, and easier to digest. I'd say for every printed page, a Kindle will take three pages for the same words. Because of this, I feel my brain hangs onto more information from the book than if I were to read a hard copy. My eyes go into "scanning mode" when confronted with a lot of text. I can't help it, they've been trained to do that by the web! Reading on a Kindle makes me slow down and really absorb what I'm reading.

There's definitely some cons to reading exclusively on a Kindle. Most notably, it's harder to share books. If you purchase a book, or download on a library loan, you can't lend the copy to a friend. This is one of my favorite parts of being a reader, and I've always cherished exchanging books with friends. You can't do that on a Kindle. If you want a friend to read a book so you can talk about it, you either have to lend them your whole Kindle, or they will need to purchase and download their own copy.

You also can't mark up the pages as much. You can highlight and make notes, which are stored in your Kindle cloud account, but I have to say, it's really not the same as organically messing up your own copy of a Shakespeare play with scrawled remarks and thoughts. The Kindle is great for passive reading, but for active readers who like to hold a note-ridden dialogue with the author, printed books can't be beat.

To my friends who think Kindles are the death of literature: I say nay! Books will always have a corner on the market, and I find classical style literature adapts very well to the Kindle interface. If anything, I've been reading more frequently since purchasing a Kindle. I find the Kindle to be a great supplement to my library (so many Kindle freebies!), but in many cases, I will still prefer to read and purchase hard copies of many books.