The eBook Revolution

In a previous post, Coming Up For Air, I wrote about my purchase of an iPad 2, and how I was adjusting my book reading habits to reading eBooks via this amazing tablet device. In my Travelling Bookworm entry, I listed all the physical books I had read over a three month period (January-March, 2012), and I've decided to return to the theme here.

Apple iPad and iPhone readers will be familiar with the iBooks app (see image). Although I also have Google's Play Books app, my eBook reader of choice at the moment is iBooks.

As you can see from the lists below, my reading of physical books continued apace during April and May. But following the purchase of my iPad, and the downloading of more than 100 free eBooks (in the ePub format) from the Gutenberg.Org website, my book reading has changed overnight from physical books to eBooks.

Books Read in April
20. Where The Buffalo Roam, by Anne Matthews
21. Dubliners, by James Joyce
22. Oliver Stone: The Making of His Movies, by Chris Salewicz
23. Before The Melting Pot: Society and Culture in Colonial New York City, 1664-1730 
24. The End of America, by Naomi Wolf
25. Isaac’s Storm, by Eric Larson
26. The Devil in The White City, by Eric Larson
27. God is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
28 A Genius for Failure: The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, by Paul O’Keeffe

Books Read in May
29. Shakespeare Never Did This, by Charles Bukowski
30. Provinces of Night, by William Gay
31. The Captain is Out to Lunch…, Charles Bukowski
32. Pulp, Charles Bukowski
33. Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski, by Neeli Cherkovski
34. Ask The Dust, by John Fante
35. Notes of a Dirty Old Man, Charles Bukowski
36. George Lucas: The Making of His Movies, by Chris Salewicz
37. The Dig Tree, by Sarah Murgatroyd
38 Tilt: A Skewed History of The Tower of Pisa, Nicholas Shrady
39 Selected Poems, T.S. Elliot

Books Read in June

40. Report From Engine Co.82, by Dennis Smith

eBooks Read in June
1. Knickerbocker’s History of New York, Washington Irving
2. Greenwich Village, Anne Alice Chapin
3. Henry Hudson, Thomas A. Janvier
4. Botticelli: Masterpieces in Colour, Henry Bryan Binns
5. The Training Of A Forester, Gifford Pinchot 
6. The Story Of Manhattan, Charles Hemstreet
7. Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search For Osama Bin Laden, Peter Bergen
8. Literary New York, Charles Hemstreet
9. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving
10. Davy and The Goblin, Charles E. Carryl
11. The Admiral’s Caravan, Charles E. Carryl
12. Nooks and Corners of New York, Charles Hemstreet
13. Journals & Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1773-1774

Of the thirteen eBooks listed above, only Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search For Osama Bin Laden, is a modern publication. All the others were originally published between 80-200 years ago! Since purchasing Manhunt, I have bought three other modern eBook titles, but continue to discover and download other public domain works via Gutenberg.Org.

So how have I found this transition from physical paper-based books to eBooks?

I must say I have surprised myself by how quickly I have taken to reading via the iPad. I love the convenience of having potentially hundreds of books stored on this device. I love too, the ability to highlight interesting passages of text, make notes, search for definitions of words I am unfamiliar with, and enlarge or reduce the size of text as it suits me. I can also do a general online search for individual words or phrases, or search Wikipedia specifically. I can also email notes and highlights to myself - or anyone else - or print them off if I want 'hard copies' of my notes.

The transition was made easier when I realised that it wasn't so much the physical books I was interested in so much as the information contained in the books themselves. Since I am first and foremost interested in the information, it makes sense to have this information close at hand - literally at my fingertips.

The main drawback I am faced with at this time is the sheer volume of eBooks available online - both public domain and commercial releases. As noted, I already have well over a hundred eBooks on my iPad, and keep discovering more that I would love to read, but finding the time to read them is my greatest problem. However, I figure it is a nice problem to have, and I am already learning to curb my initial enthusiasm for collecting a mass of esoteric titles I may never get to read. Mind you, the beauty of discovering public domain eBooks is that they are always available online, and I can always return to download them as the mood takes me.

What do you think of eBooks? Are you a convert? A passionate advocate or a traditional book reader? Feel free to add your thoughts to this topic via the comments box below. Personally, I believe the wave of the future has arrived, and even though I know I will still buy the occasional traditional book, I am firmly committed to 'book' reading via my iPad.

Coming Up For Air

Hard to believe, I suppose, but there it is… my last entry was posted on April 1 (All Fools Day), and despite my best efforts to ignore my blog and devote myself to reading, people have kept visiting this site, and to my amazement (and confusion), I’ve even gained a couple of followers during my self-imposed exile.
I also discovered recently that a blog called Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria recently featured The Compleat Traveller as her blog of the month. In keeping with the focus of her own blog, Eleni has specifically chosen to feature my numerous entries about the Greek island of Ikaria, my ancestral home in the Aegean Sea.
I had hoped to return to Ikaria this year, but I have decided instead to make my third trip to America, so Greece and my island ‘home’ will have to wait for another twelve months or so. Meanwhile, thank you Eleni for the honor, and I commend my readers to Eleni’s Blog in Ikaria and hope you enjoy her writing and mine.

Apple iPad 2
Apart from continuing my reading streak, I bought a 64Gb iPad 2 at the start of June, and I have been discovering its many joys and features ever since. In fact, I am rarely away from it, and amongst other things, I have been testing its potential as an eBook reader. To that end I have downloaded over a hundred free eBooks from that wonderful repository of public domain books at Gutenberg.Org, and already read a dozen of them. I have also bought and read one other book, Peter Bergen’s Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search For Osama Bin Laden.
I finally made the move to iPad and eBooks after my bookshelf began to fill to capacity, and I realised that I just had to make the transition from physical books to digital reading before my passion for books got totally out of control.
It seems to have worked.
Since purchasing the iPad, I have only bought a couple of physical books and the more I use the device to read, the less I feel the need to buy ‘hard copies’ of the printed word.
Of course, the iPad has many other functions and uses, and I am planning to make it my main digital companion on my forthcoming trip to America. On previous trips I have lugged a heavy laptop around with me, but I am going to see how I can get by with my new purchase. I am hopeful that I can do pretty much everything I will need to do while on the road, and where it does not suffice, I will use internet cafés.
Anyway, I’m alive and well, and looking forward to travelling again, and making the occasional blog post here. Oh, and it’s good to be back. I think.

The Travelling Bookworm

I have been consuming books at a great rate over the last three months, which accounts for the lack of entries on this ‘travel’ blog. It also reflects the fact that I haven’t been travelling much over the past year – although I did spend five weeks house sitting in Melbourne during January and February. In fact, my Melbourne stay has been responsible in part for my return to reading. The city has some great second hand bookshops, and on my return to Adelaide, I carried with me a carton of 22 books that I just could not ignore as I trawled through my favourite stores.

I used to have a collection of several thousand books, but five or six years ago I sold my house and have been living in a series of rented accommodations ever since. As a result, I got rid of the bulk of my collection, with the rest packed in boxes, which are in turn stacked in my niece’s shed.

The previous collection of books covered everything from folk music to folk tales, history to fantasy, fiction and non-fiction, politics and art, and much more. Sadly, I never seemed to have time to read most of the books I bought. They just took up space on the bookshelves waiting patiently for the day when I would finally find the time to devote to them. Unfortunately, that time never came.

However, now that I am pretty much retired, I have plenty of time to read, and that is what I have been doing. Most of my new, small, but growing collection of books deals with 17th and 18th century history as it relates to the United States and Europe. I have also become interested (in a very general way) with architecture, art, and philosophy. To lighten my reading list, I try to mix non fiction titles in amongst the serious tomes, and I must say, I have found my renewed enthusiasm for reading quite addictive and of course stimulating and educational.

I can’t imagine why you would be interested, but here for the record is a list of the books I have read to date in 2012:

Books Read in January

1.      At The Edge of a Dream: The Story of Jewish Immigration on New York’s Lower East Side 1880–1920

2. Imperial City: The Rise and Rise of New York, Geoffrey Moorhouse
3. The French and Indian War, Walter R. Borneman
4. Will Rogers, by Ben Yogoda
5. Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell
6. To Reach The Clouds, by Phillipe Petit
7. Bird Cloud: A Memoir, by Annie Proulx

Books Read in February

8. City Life, by Witold Rybczynski
9. Architectural Details, by Marcia Reiss
10. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide, By Joseph Epstein
11. Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
12. How The Industrial Revolution Changed The World, by Thomas Crump
13. All That Follows, by Jim Crace

Books Read in March

14. The Way West, by A.B. Guthrie
15. History of Pirates, by Charlotte Montague
16. Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt
17. Red Silk: The Life of Elliott Johnston QC, by Penelope Debelle
18. The Potomac, by Frederick Gutheim
19. An Australian in America, David Dale