I've just put together all my spendings for tax - tomorrow I see my tax agent - and have realised that in this financial year, I've bought far more ebooks than print. I claim all my books, because of my dual role of writer and teacher librarian. Non fiction is used in my research and fiction both for my market research and doing my job as a schoolmarm properly.
Sometimes I have downloaded a book the kids are reading - last year we ran out of copies of Gabrielle Wang's A Ghost In My Suitcase, for example, and I was sitting with that group reading it aloud, as one of the students was a dyslexic. It seemed simplest to download and read immediately. This year I bought ebooks of some of the CBCA shortlisted books as soon as the list was announced.
And sometimes, I just read about a new book or an old favourite and yield to the temptation to download. I seem to have done that a lot this year. It's so easy just to open iBooks and start downloading. Which is what I did during the Reading Matters conference, often while the authors were speaking. So when autograph time began, I had nothing for them to sign.
I have downloaded Harry Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine. That's an old favourite of which I never tire. And my print copy is falling apart. I got a Howard Myers book from the Baen free web site - never read any of his work before. A good time to try it. I bought Kerry Greenwood's new Phryne Fisher novel, Murder And Mendelssohn, though I will also have to buy the print copy because I share these with my mother and sister, but I just couldn't wait. I have to say that for the first time I figured out the murderer before the end and thought,"Oh, no, I will HATE it if the killer turns out to be..." and suspected that it would. And it was. But the book was fun and as so often, Kerry has written about a subject she knows - in this case, choirs. There was also Trust Me, the anthology in which I have a story, because I can't recall where my print copy is and before the holidays, a student asked me if I had anything similar to the title story of the anthology, and, to my shame, I couldn't remember the story. So I will make sure I read the lot.
The thing is, it 's just so very EASY to do this. You don't have to go to the bookshop or the library and when you finish one book, there's plenty more on your little computer to read. A very good thing for soone like me who can't do the deferred gratification thing, eh?
Sometimes I have downloaded a book the kids are reading - last year we ran out of copies of Gabrielle Wang's A Ghost In My Suitcase, for example, and I was sitting with that group reading it aloud, as one of the students was a dyslexic. It seemed simplest to download and read immediately. This year I bought ebooks of some of the CBCA shortlisted books as soon as the list was announced.
And sometimes, I just read about a new book or an old favourite and yield to the temptation to download. I seem to have done that a lot this year. It's so easy just to open iBooks and start downloading. Which is what I did during the Reading Matters conference, often while the authors were speaking. So when autograph time began, I had nothing for them to sign.
I have downloaded Harry Harrison's The Technicolor Time Machine. That's an old favourite of which I never tire. And my print copy is falling apart. I got a Howard Myers book from the Baen free web site - never read any of his work before. A good time to try it. I bought Kerry Greenwood's new Phryne Fisher novel, Murder And Mendelssohn, though I will also have to buy the print copy because I share these with my mother and sister, but I just couldn't wait. I have to say that for the first time I figured out the murderer before the end and thought,"Oh, no, I will HATE it if the killer turns out to be..." and suspected that it would. And it was. But the book was fun and as so often, Kerry has written about a subject she knows - in this case, choirs. There was also Trust Me, the anthology in which I have a story, because I can't recall where my print copy is and before the holidays, a student asked me if I had anything similar to the title story of the anthology, and, to my shame, I couldn't remember the story. So I will make sure I read the lot.
The thing is, it 's just so very EASY to do this. You don't have to go to the bookshop or the library and when you finish one book, there's plenty more on your little computer to read. A very good thing for soone like me who can't do the deferred gratification thing, eh?
I also like that ebooks take up less space. And I don't have to worry about shipping them when we move countries again.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've noticed you like ebooks. :) And I see your point. When I went to live overseas for a year, I took six books with me and shipped back 25 kilos worth! Of course, that was long before ebooks. But see,there were all these fabulous second hand shops with loads of SF in them...
ReplyDeleteWhen I moved into this tiny apartment a year ago, I had to downsize drastically in the book department. I've been reasonably good about not buying more in hard copy, but I've bought dozens of e-books! They are inexpensive and so easy to acquire it's easy to give in to temptation!
ReplyDeleteI did the same as you when I lived in the States, Sue - bought up big on books (because the place I worked could get them at a huge discount!) but sending them back to Oz when I came home cost more than I'd paid for them!