Ode to the e-book reader

Usually when I talk about how happy I am with my Cybook, people don't understand the point of such a boring gadget - there's no colors, no games, no touch screen (some of them do have it), it costs hundreds of dollars, why can't you read on a laptop, and what's wrong with a good old-fashioned paper book anyway? Well, I'm about to explain exactly why e-book readers are so great, and why I'm so in love with mine.

Space: Remember when mp3-s replaced CDs? Remember how heavy those book boxes were the last time you moved? Now I have this thing that's 19 x 12 x 0.8 centimeters and weighs 170 grams, and a folder in my computer with a bunch of text files. No, I haven't had the heart to get rid of all my paper books yet, and of course there are the comic books, but there are no new books coming into the house, and there's always the memory of the CD shelves that are gone forever.

Comfort: This is going to sound petty, but you'll have to take my word for it - the fact that I can hold the e-book with just three fingers and turn the page without moving, that I can be under the covers in bed, hold the book through the cover and not have to take my arm out to turn the pages, the fact that I don't have to keep propping something to keep the book open, all make an incredibly big difference. Add to that the fact that e-paper doesn't flare in direct sunlight, which means that I can sit in a park or in a bus without going blind.

Adjustable text size: I work about ten hours a day on a computer. After that, even with glasses, my eyes can't focus on normal book text sizes. Between that and some attention deficit symptoms that I suffer from, there was a time when I depended mostly on audio books. The fact that now I can pick a large text size not only allows me to see it better, but it gives the illusion that the reading is going very fast, as the pages become much shorter than usual. Without the e-book I would probably have carried Anna Karenina and Moby Dick around my neck like huge millstones of shame right into the grave. Now I can happily talk about how crap they are.

Availability: I live in the third world. I speak four languages, and I like to read what I can in its original form. Most of the things I want to read are very hard to find here in stores, and many times you have to settle for the translated version. On the other hand, I can find almost everything I want in online stores and download it immediately.

So, why not a laptop, iPhone or the coveted iPad? All of them are heavier than the e-books, and I personally can't stand to read from a computer screen. Also, I don't mind admitting that if I had a choice between computer games and reading, reading would lose every time. So the low-tech is actually an advantage.
As for the people who need the feel, taste and smell of paper, to me they're like the people who miss the scratchy sound of records - their argument is completely irrational to me, and I don't know how to argue with irrational convictions.

Now I read that they have come up with the first Hebrew e-book reader. It's not the first reader that works with Hebrew, but it is the first one that has its own online store. And it's very beautiful (though I might've seen that design before), and it's a great idea. I hope it works well even though it's a prototype, and I hope that people realize how useful it can be.