The Ebook Takeover

You may be looking at this title and thinking, “Ariel, what the heck does that even mean? The ebook takeover?” No, I’m not going to be talking about ebooks beating out physical books (which, at least last I checked, they’re not). All this post is about is my reading experiences this year, and my newfound love and appreciation for ebooks.

2019 is, so far, the year of the ebook for me. I have, of course, read some physical books, but out of the 16 books I have read so far this year, 11 of them have been ebooks. Part of that was, of course, because up until last month, I was in a foreign country with no access to my library here at home. And since I got home, I’ve been reading a lot more physical books. So maybe it was just because of my circumstances, but I’ve read a lot more ebooks than I usually do this year.

I’m never going to give up my real paper books, of course. I love them dearly, and I will probably always have a collection of them in my home. But since reading (and, more importantly, actually finishing) ebooks is a new trend in my reading life this year, I thought I’d talk about some of the things I love about ebooks, and how I’m using them to (try to) read more.

#1: They’re portable.

This is the best part about ebooks. For me, just keeping them on my phone is better than having a separate ereader, because my phone is smaller than a Nook or a Kindle, and I always take it with me everywhere I go. When I was younger, I had a Nook, but I would always forget to charge it or, if it was charged, I would forget to bring it with me when I went out, so I never read much on it. I never forget my phone, though, so these days, everywhere I go, I have a book to read.

#2: They make it easier to read more than one book at once.

I know, reading a whole bunch of books at the same time is not usually advisable, but since I have a tendency to do it, anyway, ebooks are great. Especially during readathons, when you want to be reading as much as you possibly can. As you may know, I’ve been trying to catch up on my Goodreads reading challenge, so I’ve been doing a lot of readathons recently.

What I’ve started doing is having one book on my phone that I read during free moments while I’m out running errands or something, and another, physical book, which I read at home, before bed, or whenever else I feel like it. It’s been working great for me, and the two different mediums kind of help me keep the stories separate in my mind.

#3: They make you feel like the fastest reader in the world.

One of the great things about ebooks is that there are a lot less words on each digital “page” than there are on a page in a regular book. When I’m reading an ebook, and I’m flipping through the pages in seconds, it gives a nice illusion that I’m reading a lot faster than normal.

I’m not, of course, but it’s nice to let myself believe that sometimes. It’s a great confidence-booster.

#4: They make highlighting and note-taking easy.

Okay, full disclosure: I don’t actually use these features on a regular basis, but as someone who hates marking inside of a physical book in any way, they’re nice if I ever need to take notes for a class (or a review—I swear someday I’ll write another one of those). I don’t feel as bad highlighting in an ebook since I can just delete it anytime, and the fact that you can look up words you don’t know in the middle of reading is pretty cool. I think if I start downloading French books onto my phone, I’ll get a lot of use out of that feature.

#5: Two words: night mode.

You may not know this about me, but I love any app that has a dark mode. If I could get every app on my phone and every page I look at on my computer to be in dark mode, I probably would. It just looks a lot better to me. So, of course, I always read my ebooks in night mode, whether it is night or not. Maybe that’s weird, but it’s just the way I am.

Of course, probably the only reason I do that is because otherwise, the screen is just way too bright. Real books don’t have that problem. (Though honestly if a book ever came out that was white text on a black page, I might read it just out of curiosity.)

Those are some of the reasons why I have come to love ebooks, though my favorite format will probably always be floppy paperbacks. What’s your favorite book format is, and why? Let me know down below!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

-Ariel