Only the other day I was searching for a book that I was interested in buying. I found that I could purchase the hard copy for around $24 or the ebook for $17. Even though the ebook version was cheaper I found that I had a real problem buying the book that way, and ended up buy a the hard copy. My reasoning was that ebooks feel too insubstantial and like you don't really own them. One little technological hiccough ( and let's face it they are reasonably common) and poof the book disappears. That's $17 down the drain which is a substantial amount of money to get nothing. I like the feel and the idea of having areal physical book on my book shelf so am prepared to pay the little extra for that.
That is not say, however, that I don't love ebooks. I do and have amassed 1000's of them. I bought a disk from ebay containing 1000's of classics (more than I could ever hope to read) and have been downloading or being gifted various ebooks over the course of the past two years. I like that I can try before I buy. If I like a book that's worthy of owning I will go out and get the hard copy. But already my bookshelf is groaning with a large collection of dusty books and I find I need to be a bit more discerning about accumulating too many more. But like an addiction, I keep telling myself this and I just keep collecting more. Now with technology I fill up my bookshelves and my hard drives with more books than I can ever hope to read. But it's so much better to be spoilt for choice than to be bereft of reading matter.
You would think that someone with such a wealth of books and ebooks would not need to go near a library. Not so. I love them even more than bookshops because they are free and they have so many books. It was while I was perusing the online catalogue of the local library, looking for a book that I was interested in, when I chose to checkout the ebook section. More as an experiment to see how it all worked than a particular desire to read a certain book, I 'borrowed' Eyre the Forgotten Explorer. It took a bit more mucking around and technology wrangling than I expected, but I managed to set my self up to become a regular ebook borrower.
The library runs its ebook borrowing through a third party, called wheelers. The first step is to set up an Adobe ID. This ID allows you to access the same ebook from up to 6 devices. I also had to down load an app onto my tablet that could read the epub version of the books. Unfortunately the books are not available in my preferred kindle format. So I downloaded Bluefire and synced it to my Adobe ID. Then by logging into the ebook library using my normal library card number and password I could download ebooks to load for up to 28 days. As it was my first time I more or less just randomly picked any book to get me started, hence, Eyre.
Given my week of feeling poorly with bad back and a cold virus, I got the book read in a very short time. I must say that I enjoyed very much. For a historical novel it was written very well in a very easy to read almost chatty format. It was based on Eyre's writings, he was an extensive journaler and letter writer, (he would probably make an enthusiastic blogger if he was alive today) and other public records. It chronicles his life in Australia and his feats at trying to find grazing land around Adelaide, a route to central Australia and an overland route to Albany. He had many dealings with the native aborigines and was often the first white man that they had seen, so he gives some fascinating insights to their lives and their customs. He became quite adept at dealing with the indigenous population and was often called upon to settle disputes and maintain peace not only between whites and blacks but between warring tribes. His explorations were superhuman in what he achieved while coming so close to death, due to lack of food and water, or altercations with some aboriginals, on a number of occasions. In some parts of the book you are left thinking that truly, life is more amazing than fiction. The parts I really liked the best, though, were where we got insight into the struggles caused by the complex dilemma of how the European and the indigenous population could co-exist.
With that ebook finished, I now need to go back and see what else there is to borrow. Borrowing an ebook, just like a hard version of a library book gives you the opportunity to experience possibly a wider range of books than you would normally if you had to buy them. In that way you can pick and choose and feel free to ditch a book if it is not to your taste. A much better option than committing to buy before you try.
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