E-Reading: 10 Things You Don’t Want to “Hold in Your Hand”

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“I just can’t do that e-reading thing. I prefer to hold a book in my hand.”

Before I started being published in e-book format, I was just as resistant to e-readers. I love books. Every room in my house has books in it. All three of my children have books on shelves, in drawers, under beds. Hell, I used to be a librarian. I’m a reader. You know what used to drive me nuts?

Leaving the book I was reading at home.

You know that feeling. You find yourself in the doctor’s office waiting much longer than you’d anticipated. The magazines are either old or uninteresting. You find yourself longing for the book you were heart-deep in, the one that you just reached the climactic point of before time to leave the house. That book that’s sitting on the kitchen counter.

Ah, but if you were reading that book on your NOOK, even if your NOOK is sitting on the kitchen counter, you’ve probably got your smartphone with the NOOK app on it…and wah-la! Put your phone in airplane mode, pull up your book and start reading. Same thing for the Kindle. You NEVER don’t have your book.

So, although books are great and very pleasant to the touch, I thought I’d make a list of ten things that would be even worse to hold in your hand than an e-reader.

10. Anything your kid spits out of his mouth.
9. A slug.
8. A live cockroach.
7. A squished cockroach.
6. A hot coal.
5. That gooey slime stuff Nickelodeon uses all the time.
4. Chewed bubblegum.
3. Chewed bubblegum from under the seat of a chair in a doctor’s office.
2. Used cat litter.
1. An actual physical copy of 50 Shades of Grey.

E-reader doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

7 thoughts on “E-Reading: 10 Things You Don’t Want to “Hold in Your Hand””

  1. I love my e-reader for its convenience. I can carry around so many books everywhere I go! People are resistant to change, and I’m sure traditional books won’t lose their appeal entirely anytime soon (even as they lose their share of the market).

    • I know you’re right, A.M.B. I don’t want traditional books to lose anything, including their share of the market. However, I think we need to realize it makes more sense to pay $2-9 for an e-copy of a good romance that can then be archived on our e-reader than it does to pay the same (or in some cases more) for a paperback of the same title that will end up dog-eared in a cardboard box somewhere. That’s where the e-reader share of the market comes in.

  2. Wow, that’s quite a list. Ugh on everything there except the cockroach. While it’s not exactly the same thing, we once had a herd (flock? swarm? passal?) of Madagascar Hissing Roaches, which are huge and make and ungodly sound very similar to what the Walking Dead zombies sound like. So, after holding them, the cockroaches aren’t quite so bad.

    Definitely agree with the rest of the list, and on the book vs. e-reader thing. I never thought I’d enjoy a Kindle until I got one (won right here on BREATHE!!!). I still don’t get to use it a lot — the wife and youngest daughter always seem to have it — but I do enjoy it on those rare occasions it does fall to my hands.

    • Ha! I’m glad to hear your family is making good use of the Kindle, JP. But you really held Madagascar Hissing Roaches? Those were the ones used in Men in Black, weren’t they? Ugly things!

      • Yes, real-life Madagascar Hissing Roaches. Big things. Here’s the kicker — it was my wife who brought them home. She brought a pair, which soon turned into a lot, which turned into a LOT more. We had them for years.

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