Reading in the Time of Technology

As I write this, I’m seated in my library surrounded by some of my most intimate and long-term companions—thousands of them.

Books are some of the best friends and truest counselors I’ve ever had. They ease my existential anxieties, providing comfort and care. As C. S. Lewis said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” It’s within books that I’m able to get inside the hearts and minds of others, to share life’s journey with them, to be encouraged by the similarities of our struggles, failures, and triumphs.

I have journeyed across the world, vicariously lived a thousand interesting lives—all without ever doing more than turning the page. As Mary Schmich said, “Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere.” But it’s not just that books transport me across the wide world, but that they take me deep into the hidden heart of another human being. “Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind; it forces you to stretch your own,” is how Charles Scribner, Jr., says the same thing.

Reading teaches compassion. There is no better way to feel what another feels than to read yourself inside his or her heart and mind. Through reading I have come to appreciate and respect the journey of others no matter how different from my own.

Reading is the truest education—and that of head and heart. I have learned far more outside the classroom than in. The best thing school, especially college, does for us is to teach us how to learn—how to think and how to read. A good education is one that makes us students for life. As Thomas Carlyle said, “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.”

Reading has changed my life more thoroughly, more profoundly, than anything else save love. And it’s not just me. Books have changed the world.

Now, the world is changing books and reading.

The reasons we read, the reasons we write words and string them together to be read will never change, but the ways in which we read and what is called a book is undergoing a sea change.

What is a book? What is reading?

Many of the books I “read” are actually read to me by professionals. Rarely am I without my ipod and the thousands of unabridged audio books it and Audible.com give me access to.

I realize most people view the ipod as a portable music and movie device, but it’s as a book that it really excels. Thanks to Apple and Audible I’m able to read hundreds more books each year than I would otherwise—listening to them while I drive, work, workout, lie in bed sleeplessly.

The ipod revolutionized the way I read books.

Then, along came Kindle.

Amazon.com’s upgraded ebook reader is amazing.

The versatile devise offers a highly readable display in the size of a paperback, the ability to store and search hundreds of manuscripts, and look up words in an onboard dictionary, on the web, or through Wikipedia. Its free wireless connection to the Amazon Kindle store gives readers access to some 250,000 books (as well as magazines and newspapers)—each able to be downloaded directly to the unit in about sixty seconds.

The Kindle 2—the only Kindle I have experience with—has 2 gigabytes of memory, enough to store more than 1500 books, and has a very powerful built-in battery. The new Kindle lasts four to five days with the wi-fi feature on and up to two weeks with it off. There’s also a very cool new feature that allows you to synch your reading among other Kindles and other mobile devices—meaning you could read 50 pages of my new novel, “Double Exposure” this September, shut off the device, and when you open the Kindle application on your phone later, it will start you on page 50. (Of course, I’m hoping you won’t be able to stop on any page save the last!)

The new Kindle’s “text-to-speech” feature has generated some controversy as authors and publishers fear it will hurt audio book sales, but, trust me, the robotic voice of the computer-generated “reader” coming out of the tiny speakers on the back of the device will not, cannot replace the perfection that is Will Patton reading James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels.

My favorite book to read is a handsomely produced hardback, but it’d be foolish to limit my reading experiences to just that.

I live in the rural South, in a small town with no bookstore. Audible.com gives me nearly instant access to thousands of audio books and the Kindle gives me nearly instant access to hundreds of thousands of ebooks. But even if I lived next door to a bookstore, I’d still want these new form books on my ipod and Kindle to be part of my library.

If reading isn’t just entertaining or informational, but transformational, why wouldn’t I read any and every way I can—hardbacks, paperbacks, audio books, ebooks?

The printed book is perfection—the printing press the greatest technological invention of all time—and nothing will ever replace it, but other types of books have their place, which with all the technological advances, of the web, of audio and ebooks, means we’re living in the midst of a reading revolution.