Just now, I had a brainstorm. The 20-page PDF files I’ve been studying on my computer screen, as I work my way through an online learning program, could easily be transferred to my iPhone. From there, I will be able to sit in my most comfortable chair and hold the device at a most comfortable distance, with the text zoomed to a most comfortable size. I raced to my computer to affect the transfer.
This from a woman who devours audio books, and gazes worshipfully at the shelves full of old paper books I have acquired an read throughout my adult life. I love to read, and I love books.
What I’ve realized here is that the situational reading format,not the ereader, is the most exciting thing going for readers. Just as TV fans demand their shows appear on a computer screen AND on the living room HD AND on the smartphone AND, though the thought horrifies me, on the DVD players in their cars, book readers like me are finding it possible to hope (if not demand, just yet) that text appear wherever and whenever. It hasn’t all come together in our minds the way it has for video addicts, but perhaps we’ll get there. Perhaps the cave-in to publishers that prevented Amazon’s Kindle from offering universal text-to-speech conversion will one day seem as laughable as an artist not providing digital versions of his or her music. Maybe my beloved old books; the novels I love to read in paper form, can coexist with the cocktail books and other recipe texts that should, in a just world, all be available via ereader. A girl can dream, can’t she?
Love your blog, yo. *hug*