I am an inveterate reader and always have a few books on the go at the same time. Sometimes, though, there are books that I want to read and just can't get my hands on at the English and German libraries in town.
One such book was Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope, the first in his political series of novels. In the end, I decided to re-join the local university library for the measly sum of EUR 14 a year. To my delight, it did have the book I wanted.
However, when I went to return the book and borrow the second in the series, I had no such luck. The only copy of Phineas Finn there was not allowed to be removed from the library - too old.
In the end, though, I happily managed to track down a copy of it online. Because of a row over 8 books that are still subject to copyright in Germany, all of the Project Gutenberg website is barred to anyone in Germany, but there are alternatives.
I thus read Phineas Finn on my Kindle. Now, there are a lot of readers who exclaim that they could never, ever read anything on an e-book. They can only read 'real' books.
Me? I think the text is the thing and don't care if it's a paper book or an e-book - just let me get my hands on the text.
And there are so many advantages to a Kindle. For one thing, it comes with two massive dictionaries, so that you can either look up a word in the text without leaving the page, or enter the two dictionaries and poke around there. Wonderful.
A second advantage is that your poor tired hands don't have to constantly struggle to keep something the size of a small loaf of bread open all the time.
And finally, there is the advantage of a flat screen - no shadows cast by the light onto the pages.
What's not to like?
If you would like to read some classic books and you can't get to Project Gutenberg in Germany, here's an alternative website that I have recently come across (sadly only English books):
https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/index.html
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If you were an invertebrate reader, would you only read books with no spine? :)
ReplyDeleteI prefer books. But after all, I am very old-fashioned in many ways. / M.
ReplyDeleteI look books, too, but I'll take them in any form possible. I was reading a thick German book this week and it was hard to handle when I got down to page 460 of 500. And since my hands are typing all day and doing needlework or crochet stuff in my free time, it's nice to be able to have a hands-free activity. And the two in-built dictionaries are a godsend.
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