I was slightly early for my GP appointment on Wednesday, so ducked into the bookstore for a browse while I waited.
There were several books I’d have loved to buy, but I find it a bit of challenge to read physical books. I tend to lay about reading and it’s kind of annoying to do so while wearing glasses and the typefaces are so tiny that I absolutely can’t read without them.
My eyesight has deteriorated quite a lot in the last year. I suspect this is largely due to being very close to a screen for hours and hours and hours and hours every day now that I’m remote (may the remote working continue forever!).
It doesn’t help at all that pretty much all of my pastimes (crafting, sewing, reading, embroidery, knitting, blogging, photograph-taking**, fish-watching) involve close work – even cooking requires wearing glasses to read recipes! There’s no respite for my poor eyes at all.
Of course the easy thing to do would be to go buy the books I’m interested in kindle format, but I really don’t care at all for the idea of rewarding Amazon for the hard work and care the bookstore has done to get me interested. I’ve said before that Amazon does a pretty appalling job of recommending books I want to read, though Amazon does a pretty stellar job of recommending books Amazon wants me to read. Please save me from another gripping psychological thriller full of twists.
Of course I could buy a kobo reader, which would get Amazon out of the equation, but still dis-intermediating the bookstore.
I could force myself to undo the habit of a lifetime and change my reading position – maybe sit in a chair instead of sprawl about. Then I will be faced with the second challenge of disposing of the physical copy, because (and I know this will appall many of you) I don’t want a an extensive collection of books that I’ll not likely read again.
What would solve my challenge would be to be able to buy a digital edition AT the bookstore. I think one of our large (and probably now only remaining) bookstore chains tried this maybe 10+ years ago and it was not a success.
Will report back if I overcome this, but open to suggestions!
xxx
** I feel like calling what I do photography is a bit of a stretch
Libraries often get large-print versions of new books; then you’d be able to see them and return them for someone else to enjoy so they’re not cluttering up your house.
I think some writers make their work available through multiple platforms so you can get an e-version without going through Amazon, but this may be more common among “niche” (fantasy, romance) genres than mainstream literary fiction.
Loved the kitty picture!
Would that this were viable! Both libraries I am a member of have a vast selection of large print in both the romance and cowboy genres and not a whole lot else! We are roughly 63 years behind the rest of the world in most things.
The more I look, the more I think a kobo reader might be the way to go, though I am not entirely sure that Rakuten is much better than Amazon. The kobo has the added bonus of integrating with the library app. Right now if I want to borrow a digital book from the library (assuming of course that it is even available**), I need to download it to my PC, convert the .epub to .mobi with the Calibre app (to which I’ve installed the “remove DRM” plugin), plug in my kindle and copy across.
Very motivated to remove Amazon from my life entirely, but the tentacles are everywhere, so I’m taking the view that even small changes are better than none at all!
** dominated by romance novels, but less cowboys