Literature; Books and Reading

 Reading especially during lock down times is or can be absorbing.

Before retirement most of my reading was done on an Amazon Kindle whilst travelling to and  from work as well as during work travel. The Kindle has the advantage of being lighter than most books and is especially useful for use whilst spending much time on trains or planes.

However the Kindle, iPad and indeed the Samsung Galaxy (one I was given four years ago 'free' upon subscribing to the Daily Telegraph) are not as fulfilling  a reading medium as a book, whether hard or softback. 

My Samsung Galaxy has been gathering dust for years following an iPad being given to me as a gift. However a company spat  later resulted in Kindle books not capable of being directly downloaded to  the iPad, so yesterday  I recharged the Samsung, to find that it works as new and still contains the many Amazon books downloaded in those pre-retirement days. Amusingly the Galaxy still showed undeleted emails from years back as I needed to log the Samsung into our upgraded wifi. Many views expressed in 2017/2018 have not really changed since then though visits to the theatre,  opera and meals out are currently off-limits.

Our own daily purchased hard copy of  The Times makes for more enjoyable or at least fulfilling, reading than the computer delivered Telegraph. The latter of course does have the advantages of regular updating throughout the day as well as readers' comments under most articles, which advantages cannot apply to the paper version of newspapers. So as regards newspapers I can see why most publishers offer subscriptions at a price of course, to hard copy and online versions.

Actual books on the other hand do not 'benefit' from readers' comments or daily updating. They also require more concentration for reading, at least  by yours truly. Yet reading books directly rather than by a mini computer of one kind or another, puts one more in the position of the characters whose stories  one is following, than in the case of reading the books electronically. 

Thus in Conclave by John Harris, the hardback of which I unearthed at home, I fell into the atmosphere of the events portrayed by the author almost as if  present whilst those events were taking place. The enjoyment of that book led me to reading others by him including Pompeii which is brilliant, The Second Sleep and now V2, all of which must have required a great deal of knowledge  and research by the author. 

Next will be Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which the sheer size of my hardback version, has put me off reading previously. 

I do not wish to decry TV as the BBC iPlayer, Netflix and Amazon are all excellent but book reading is I assume, rather better for  mental well being as well as requiring more imagination.