Let Inga Tell You: Why some people — like me — will never use an e-reader

Recently I read an article about the personality traits of people who still read physical books instead of e-books. Even before I read the first word, I was willing to go wild and crazy and surmise that those would be positive traits and that the author was likely a physical book reader herself.

Of course, if this article had been written by either of my strictly digital-reading sons, I would guess those personality traits would include “Luddite,” “techno-moron,” “change-averse,” “retro” and the ever-popular “tree killer.”

And actually, all of those terms would be true.

Now that I’m retired, I read at least three books a week, the vast majority of them from my always-full public library queue. The front seat of my car has books being transported to and from the library pretty much at all times.

Being able to read so many books is definitely a corrective emotional experience from my 12 years as a divorced working mom, when I read exactly no books a year. I mean, zee-ro. I didn’t even bother with a library card since they unreasonably wouldn’t let you keep a book for 12 months (years?) at a time. There used to be library fines, and mine would have looked like the defense budget.

So I’d buy a book that would reside on my bedside table with hopes that over time I’d have enough time or energy to actually read it. But I never got past the first page. In that era, I was so chronically exhausted that I was usually asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I’m just glad I lived long enough to make up for all those books I never got to read.

My engineer husband, Olof, reads both e-books and physical books. He likes novels on his e-reader but thinks the graphics are better in the massive 1,200-page techno-tomes he inexplicably considers pleasure reading.

As for me, I just like the tactile feel of an actual book in my lap.

According to the article about physical book readers, the traits we have (as opposed to you unctuous e-reader people) are (allegedly): we’re self-aware, empathic, imaginative, self-disciplined, reflective, thoughtful, deeply emotional, poetic and introspective.

Actually, I can simplify that list. If it requires instructions and/or batteries, we’re not interested.

I read the list of qualities of physical book readers to my husband and asked if he thought these traits describe me. When I got to “deeply emotional,” he queried, “So, like hurling f-bombs at your electronics?”

OK, I admit it. I am not only techno-disabled but have the frustration tolerance of a gnat. It seems like the only reasonable response when technology thwarts me. Which it seems to do pretty continuously.

Seriously, everything has gotten so much more complicated than it needs to be. Even my new stove required a 60-page manual of instructions. It doesn’t even get to “bake” until page 40. The stove I had when I first married had two knobs, one marked “Off-Bake-Broil” and the other indicating temperatures. (The “pre-heat” setting, not actually indicated, was waiting 15 minutes.) I still think of that stove incredibly fondly.

I have seen firsthand that I am not the only physical book aficionado out there. Never was this illustrated more eloquently than on March 14, 2020, when the library announced it would be closing the next day until further notice because of the COVID epidemic.

The La Jolla/Riford Library on Draper looked like a literary Luddite Fall of Saigon. There was wholesale panic. The place was packed. The librarians were frantically dispensing plastic grocery bags and allowing patrons to check out up to 40 books, although I don’t think anyone was actually counting.

Like everyone else, I was dumping books wholesale into my bags according to two criteria, which were (1) it had a cover and (2) there were words inside.

During the pandemic, books were assumed to be carrying COVID cooties, so there was no way to return them during the long library closure. They rode around in the trunk of my car for months, waiting to be repatriated with the mother ship.

COVID generated a new DSM-5 category of mental disorder: People Who Will Just Not Use E-Readers No Matter What. (There is no vaccine for this.)

Fortunately, a lot of those neighborhood “little libraries” popped up during that time so people could exchange books. They were a godsend. I was pawing through them at every opportunity.

From time to time, we techno-hostile people actually prevail. Olof and I like to sit outside on summer evenings and read, he on his iPad or e-reader and me with a library book. Occasionally, Olof will have to go in early because the iPad’s low battery sensor is flashing. I try to look sympathetic, but it’s all I can do to stifle a snicker. I never have to worry about the battery on my library book getting too low.

“You don’t have to look so smug,” my techno-husband will say, heading indoors.

But I can’t help myself. I just want to sit outside for as long as I want with a nice glass of wine and an actual book that makes a soothing susurrus when you turn the pages. No charging necessary.

Inga’s lighthearted looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at inga47@san.rr.com.