Week 9: Thing TWENTY TWO

I like the idea of ebooks, in that they are a very convenient, if not green way of obtaining literature. Ebooks allow readers the luxury of accessing a myriad of titles using nothing more than an internet-compatible computer. From an ecological standpoint, ebooks save on printing, paper, and shipping costs, which considerably reduces production costs, and electronic access translates into reduced automobile emissions by eliminating the need to drive to the public library or the bookstore.

An immediate drawback that I can think of, is that ebooks are, to some extent, less portable (or more cumbersome) than traditional books. Ebooks can be accessed online, which would require that one has a laptop with an internet connection, or, because the ebooks can be downloaded, one might only need a laptop and a sufficient power source. Alternatively, the ebooks can be downloaded and printed, which to me seems more taxing than simply buying the actual book. In any case, having an ebook is not quite the same as being able to crack open a traditional book on the subway, under a shady tree, or during a long flight on the airplane.

Librivox is a brilliant tool. While I have some reservations about people becoming too dependent on being read to, as opposed to reading for themselves, I certainly think that audio ebooks have a niche. Personally, despite never really taking long, independent drives in the car, I love the idea of being able to download an audio ebook and listening to it during a long drive or flight.

I decided to go out on a limb and search on both World Ebook Fair and Librivox for some of the more, shall we say thoroughly written books that came to mind. Interestingly enough, neither site had A People's History of the United States of America (Howard Zinn) or Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond), but both sites contained The Three Musketeers (Alexandre Dumas) and Democracy in America (Alexis de Tocqueville).