I really hate it when the things we know and love, or long to own and move into the “know and love” category, are found to be dangerous to us.  But this, I believe “mind control” is the accurate term, seems to be exactly what is happening with some of the most popular new electronic devices out there. Oh no! Not with the brains waves again. Give it a rest! Don’t worry, it’s not that mind control. But today I was made aware that simply using one of these little electronic helpers – in the approved way – can lead to serious deficiencies in my, and your, output of N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine. This is something, I think you all will agree, that I simply cannot let pass.

It all started when I realized that I needed to read many more “current” books so that I could go to my new groups’ meetings and actually appear informed. This is no mean feat for someone like myself. I put together a list of these must-read books and logged into Amazon.com. Gasp! It became abundantly clear that for me that it was going to be a choice between eating and reading.  So I walked across the hill and got a library card. It wasn’t an optimal solution but, hey, it was one I could afford.  

Libraries are in the process of turning into one of those quaint institutions held over from a prior age. Kind of like farriers. In the good old days there was a farrier on every corner. They were more common than sidewalks in a city. Then, almost in the blink of an eye, *POOF*, they were gone. Nowadays, when you happen to pass a sign that says “Farrier” your reaction is probably along the lines of: WTF? So it will be with libraries. But libraries, unlike farriers, are not going down without a fight.

Across the country public libraries have taken to new technology like a farrier to hammers. Gone are the musty smelling card catalogs, gone are the moldy stacks of antique books. Now, everything is on computer. This is perfect. I could wander into the Queen Anne branch of the Seattle Public Library, search the system for my de rigueur literature, plink down my library card, and walk away with a stack of relevant reading material to peruse to my heart’s content. In theory.

The reality is somewhat different. At my branch a large space in the center of the library is dedicated to shelves filled with books – no surprise there. But on these shelves each of the thousand or so books was bearing the name of another library patron.  Anymore it seems that you have to reserve a book in advance to actually check it out. Fortunately the computer system at the library is the exact same one that I can access from the comfort of my own home. This is good because 1) alcohol is forbidden in the library and 2) given libraries’ precarious existence you probably don’t want to be stuck inside when they nail the doors closed. Instead, I can sit at my desk, cocktail nearby, and browse through the titles I wish to read. When I find a book to read I can click “Put on hold” and just like that it will be ready for me to dash into the library, tear it off the shelf and run out the door before I get sealed inside.

Again, reality intervenes in the shape of budgetary constraints. When I click “Put on hold” mostly what I see is “The Seattle Public Library has 5 copies.  You are number 758 in line for this book.”  If I want to check out a book right now it will be something like Adam Hops: A Look at Brewing in Ancient Abyssinia. However, if the book I really want to read becomes available before the glaciers return, they will kindly drop it by my local branch so that it will be easier to get over there with my walker.

Then I made a fortuitous mistake. I clicked on Cutting for Stone by Abraham Vergese. The list of covers appeared and I clicked on one. This was followed by “Click here for a list of supported devices.” Ah Ha! An eBook! This could be my literary relevancy salvation.

Off I went. I started looking into eReaders. For those among you unfamiliar with the concept of an eReader imagine a device that is about the size and weight of a paperback book. When you look at it the text appears to be printed on paper. However, in this wee system reside not one, but hundreds or even thousands of books. There are several eReaders on the market, well a lot more than several actually. They range from the brick-weight iPad and its lesser known brethren at the top end down to the nearly ubiquitous smart-phones at the bottom. I quickly ruled out the lower end of the spectrum because the screens are so small and I really wanted to be able to see more than one word at a time. The iPad, despite its gorgeous display and near deity status, I ruled out along with the other so-called tablet devices on the basis of cost. Besides that, these classes of readers – large and small – are basically poison.

This goes back to the N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine mentioned at the start. That tongue-twistingly hyphenated compound is also known as melatonin – the chemical that regulates our sleep. It seems that exposing yourself to color LCD displays just prior to bed reduces your body’s output of melatonin and you end up unable to sleep. The colors of a typical LCD screen are in the same family as what is widely known as “Daylight”. When you are exposed to these colors your body believes it’s not yet time to crash so you stay up way beyond bedtime. When you finally give into exhaustion, curling up with your iPad for a few chapters only exacerbates the problem.

This revelation left me stunned and somewhat sleepy. It also left me looking at the remaining choices in the middle of the pack. These are the dedicated eReaders – all they do is let you read a book. There are a stack of different readers out there but most feature a monochrome screen from 5” – 7” diagonally, weigh about 10 – 12 ounces and some are what I might actually describe as “affordable”. While a very few do feature LED screens the rest use something called “E-ink” to display the text. E-ink is one of these things that seem like pure magic. It isn’t a display so much as a very sophisticated Etch-a-Sketch. When it draws a page it puts these ink particles where they should go, shuts down, and the ink just stays put. When you press the button to turn the page the display wakes back up, rearranges the ink, and then goes back to sleep. The net result is that you can turn thousands of pages on a single battery charge. Plus the ink is only visible in reflected light. There is no blue glow emanating from the screen and screwing up your circadian rhythms. It other words, it’s a computer that works almost exactly like a book.

I narrowed my search to the three devices that define the market: namely Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s Nook, and Sony’s modestly named Reader. 

The Kindle fell from consideration immediately. When you buy a Kindle absolutely everything you read on it must also be bought from Amazon.com. This is sort of like buying a kitchen stove with the restriction that all of the food you cook on it has to come from the appliance store. Amazon is selling the Kindle to maximize its profits. So there will be no Communist activity like putting anything on it like the books you can get for free from your local library. Sure, they say there are millions of books you can read cost-free – if you’re interested in things like beer making in ancient Abyssinia. But the stuff you want to read, that’s gonna cost you.

The Sony and Nook are pretty similar products. Both support a proprietary book format along the lines of the Kindle but they also support popular open formats as well. This makes it possible to download my library books or buy from an unaffiliated online store. I’ve used a Sony Reader before and it’s not a bad way to read a book – once you get used to not having any pages. But I ended up dropping the Sony from consideration because it costs about $100 just to have it say “Sony” on the front. The Nook is a really nice reader too but Barnes and Noble are obsessed with its cuteness. It’s got a cute little color screen on the bottom with all these little icons that just distract from the actual experience of reading a book.

So back to my online library I went. The Seattle Public Library has this neat little app that tells you which file format you should download depending on which reader you own. There was one device listed I didn’t recognize: the Kobo eReader. It supported both open formats – ePub and PDF – but had no proprietary format. That was not a problem. I went to Kobo’s website. It seemed like a nice device. It supports WiFi, but not 3G, so you can load it from your home network or while on the road – just not while you’re driving. It doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as some of its competitors but as something just to read books from the library it seemed fine.

Then, it being what I do, I turned over another rock. Borders Books had selected the Kobo as its low-price eReader offering. Then Borders went into bankruptcy. Now, as part of their hopeful financial resurrection, Borders is promoting eReading with a vengeance. Borders is selling the Kobo for $99. Ca-Ching! My inner cheapskate did a back flip and I sent in my C-note.

It’s on its way to me now. Soon I’ll be able to store about 1000 books in less space than a single paperback. I’ll be able to have all the product manuals for everything I own in one convenient place. Plus, when I want a book from the library I can just download it in seconds and read away.

I do enjoy the sensual experience of reading a book – crisp pages, the smell of ink and paper. But then I used to enjoy the turntable ritual associated with playing records too. I haven’t bought a record in 27 years so I think I’ll get used to the lack of paper pretty quickly. And if I start jonesin’ for that “new book smell” I can just go to smellofbooks.com and buy a can. A quick squirt on my Kobo and I’ll be good to go.