Blog 10

I think that most of my posts during this semester were quite negative towards the internet (at least the social media aspect). So now I want to find something positive in this global network.

I'm a bookworm. I can easily read a book a day. Or two books if I have no deadlines. So during a single year the total number of books grow enormously. It  is expensive to buy every time the hard copy. And quite often the book is not so good that you don't want to keep it anymore, so the hard copy becomes the useless placeholder on the shelf. And here comes the online world.

Thanks to the Internet I can get a new book in several clicks, for less money than the hard copy or even for free. I can take it from the library without leaving my apartment. And if I don't want to keep it anymore I just delete it, or on other hand, if I want to have it with me, I just save it somewhere in cloud, and I have this book anywhere at any time.  In the Internet you can get reviews on the books you're thinking about, you can get personal recommendations based on the books you've read, so you can always fins a book you'll probably like. 

Some negative things I've heard about reading e-books. Firstly, it can diminish the chance of the surprise new opening with a book you've never heard about (it happens when you come to the physical bookstore and just grab randomly), but nobody stops you from checking a link on a random book online, and perhaps you'l like it more than the random hard copy book because of reviews. Secondly, you don't have the physical contact with a book, you don't feel the pages, you don't smell it (I know people like to smell books). But as a student I value the convenience more than the comfort. I would rather take any number of books I need on my Kindle that doesn't take nearly any space in my bag than I would take just one book that makes my bag to heavy to carry around campus.

And just one life example about why I love e-books. Everybody knows the Harry Potter books. When I first read them I was 7, and I had to wait for 2 years until the last book was published and then several more months for the translation. The translation was really good (later, when I became better in English, I compared the original version and the translation). But after some time publishers decided to republish the whole series of the Harry Potter books with the new translation. And it is awful, you can barely read it if you know how it can be and how it should be. Fans were in despair, they begged to republish the old translation, but the answer was no. So now it is nearly impossible to buy the hard copy books with the old translation, people who have them prefer to keep them for themselves, or they are really expensive. But you can definitely find the e-book with the old translation. I have all 7 of them on my computer, and I'm happy that I can keep the part of my childhood with me. And my children will be able to read the "right" version of Harry Potter (or they can learn English and read the original version, but it is another story).