Behind Enemy Lines

Books have been an integral part of my domestic landscape for as long  as I can remember. Bookshelves proudly bearing everything from ratty old paperbacks to pristine hardbacks line every available wall I can get away with before, inevitably, whoever I'm living with declares me financially and spacially irresponsible and bans me from entering Waterstones.

My earliest memory of a book is not a particularly dignified one. My grandmother perched on the side of the bed my sister and I were sharing in her spare room, trying desperately to read us tales from One Hundred-Acre Wood before we went to sleep. Exasperated, she eventually gave up when we fell about laughing every time she uttered the word 'Pooh'.


Peter Rabbit



I am pleased to report that my reading material, along with my sense of humour matured and very soon, I was glued to Beatrix Potter and devouring Enid Blyton (The Wishing Chair and The Far-Away Tree, my absolute favourites). I adore(d) Dahl and eventually developed the typical teenage fascination with vampires. My tastes remained fairly eclectic though - favouring mixed genres and swinging between Charlotte Bronte and Stephen King by the age of thirteen. Every now and again, I would find a book that was to become part of my affair with literature for life. Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews and it's following series was one of these stories. I've now lost count of the amount of times I have read them. Always the same tired paperbacks, lined and brittle with flaking covers. They are the true veterans of my book case. Every time I look at them, I want to read them again.

My passion for books has never wavered. Even my desk at Oxford University Press is cluttered with advance copies I am fairly certain I will never get round to reading - but I love to look at them anyway. My environment is that much more comforting with them than without.

 

The Folk of the Faraway Tree

So it will come as no surprise, that when e-readers began to surface on the market a couple of years ago, I jumped on my high-horse faster than Clint Eastwood had ever managed. I ranted and raved - pointed fingers, picked up my scythe and in the very best damning voice I could muster, declared them the work of Satan and his minions. Reading screens instead of books? Pressing buttons instead of turning pages? NO. They were the very essence of technology over-stepping it's boundaries and going too far. Where would we be next if we allowed e-readers to declare the book redundant? I was plagued with visions of children with giant headsets sitting idly in chairs - their brains playing hopskotch or '123 in' while their legs twitched in tired protest of the neglect. I was certain. E-readers marked the end of everything decent, pure and traditional.

I may have overreacted. Slightly.

Just after Christmas 2010, I got the beginnings of gadget envy. I recognized it in myself and tried to quell the temptation - reminding myself of all of those sound, revelation-style arguments I had been so vehement about. Still, I couldn't quite get rid of it and began to see the potential of a device such as Amazon's 'Kindle'. I could store 5000 books on the comparitively tiny piece of equipment and save my precious bookshelves for beautiful editions of the novels I trully cherished. I could purchase with one click and be reading mere seconds later. The lure was almost overwhelming.

Scrap the 'almost'. I lasted two months and last week was in receipt of a shiny new Kindle. My husband has threatened to disown me. He's holding fast to the scripture of doom I was guilty of spouting myself just weeks ago. I am a heathen and a traitor and he eyes my Kindle with shrewd, mistrusting eyes. I've not once felt secure enough to leave them in a room together unsupervised yet.

Suddenly, this new medium has refreshed my love of reading and the TV glares at me, betrayed, whenever I have a spare ten minutes to myself. I am converted - I love the e-reader.

Look at me - I'm evolving.