When I first heard about Laure Eve’s Paper vs. Pixels Challenge I thought it was an easy choice. I’m obviously Team Paper. I love physical books, and I don’t own an e-reader. My e-book experience consists of the Kindle App on my phone and tablet: too bright, too small on the phone, with the tablet too cumbersome to hold and the battery draining about 5 times as fast on both. Very MEH.
But that’s not the point of Paper vs Pixels – after all, it wouldn’t be a challenge if it wasn’t challenging to do. Laure’s original post asks that people choose something that will be a break from their routine. And funnily enough, choosing Paper only would make a big difference to my reading experience.
I don’t read that many physical books any more. A quick look at the Venn diagram of my ‘Read in 2013’ and ‘Audiobook’ categories on goodreads would tell all there is to know about my addiction to recorded books.
I adore audiobooks, I think they’re possibly the best way of consuming stories that there is. I realise they don’t work for everybody, but listening to a book is a deeply satisfying experience to me. And on an even more personal level, audiobooks have taught me a ridiculous amount of my English. I also really like the idea that stories were told around camp fires for centuries, long before the printing press.
My Audible membership buys me a book a month, but from the sheer size of my audio library, it’s pretty clear I click the ‘Buy 3 Extra Credits!’ button too damn often. All in all, it’s getting a bit pricy and I still have a LOT of unread books on my shelves.
So, in the spirit of ‘I don’t have a problem, I can stop whenever I want!’, I’m going to take a little audiobook break. So, to come back to the Paper vs. Pixels Challenge, I do choose paper. I choose physical books over audiobooks, which for me is a much bigger challenge than choosing paper over pixels…
I’m currently two books behind on my Goodreads Challenge, aiming to read 60 books in 2014. So this month I really need to crank it up and read more than four books!
Currently Reading:
– The Ghost train to New Orleans, by Mur Lafferty
– Parasite, by Mira Grant
Next on my To Read List:
– The Demon’s Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan