A Reading Update

I never did finish the Orhan Pamuk essays (click here for that hopeful post); am I crazy to still plan on reading his latest novel, The Museum of Innocence? Anyway, that's still a long way off.

Am reading at a snail's pace these days. I've been toting around The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, another author I've been lukewarm about in the past, for over a month now. But unlike the Pamuk book, I'm really enjoying this one! The only problem is I can't manage to read more than two or three pages a night. Thankfully, the chapters are about that long!

I should mention that since the semester started, I've read about fifteen young adult novels ... Trying to keep up with my students! The most notable: I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

E-Books -- An Expat's Necessity?

Image via WikipediaFor a few months now, I've seen colleagues, friends and even traveling relatives carry around either a Kindle or an iPad, and I can no longer ignore what seems to be a growing trend. I need to decide: do I buy into it? (And is it a trend, or will e-books indeed become what MP3 players now are to music?)

If I still lived in Toronto, if I weren't an expat, there's no way I would even be considering this. But an expat I am, so here goes:

Cons:

• an immediate expense (especially if I choose the iPad, which is way more than an e-book)
• new technology = being replaced by improved new technology ... so would my Kindle quickly become 'old' the way the first iPods quickly did?
• being unable to borrow from and lend books to friends, which is just plain fun
• guilt: my school's library has a lot of books and magazines, and I should take advantage!

Pros:

• Never again having to pack, move and unpack books, as I already have so many times in my life, as I did this summer, and as I undoubtedly will again.
• Being able to 'buy' a book and start reading it instantly (or so I'm told). This is especially key as English books are not easy to come by in Turkey. Or at least they weren't in Tarsus or Adana. Although they are in Istanbul, as I discovered much to my delight yesterday when I walked into Remzi Kitabevi and the first thing I saw, opposite the entrance, was a huge shelf of recently published English books, including several by Malcolm Gladwell and Elif Shafak's latest novel. Not your standard 'bestseller' fare. So anyway, perhaps this particular point is moot now that we live in Istanbul.
• English books in Turkey are expensive; e-books cost the same everywhere (I would think! Please let me be right!)
• Ordering books from amazon.com to Turkey has just gotten more complicated and it has nothing to do with the bookseller.
• E-book readers really aren't expensive at all, averaging around $150. If I buy 5 English books from a Turkish bookstore, I've spent around that much. 10 if I buy them on a trip home to Canada. But then of course I've got to lug them back with me ...

With all the 'pro' arguments, why haven't I just gone ahead and bought a Kindle? None of the items on my 'con' list are enough to dissuade me. What it comes down to, then, is this: I'm afraid I'd miss the feel of a book in my hand; would miss the smell of books; would miss holding one page between my thumb and forefinger as I read the previous page, anticipating the next; that I wouldn't be able to underline or otherwise mark up passages I find particularly inspiring. And most of all, that I'd miss seeing my collection grow on my shelves, grow until the next big heart-breaking purge.

The Newspaper

Sunday is the day my husband reads the paper, and every Sunday I am reminded how much I miss that Sunday ritual: a long lazy day spent curled up with The Globe and Mail or the National Post, or, if I've really got time, The New York Times. The day is divided into chunks of reading time broken up by compulsory Sunday errands, and after each one, I settle down again in my comfy chair with a fresh cup of coffee for another stint of pleasurable reading. I still read on Sundays, just not the newspaper. And it's not the same.

One takes for granted one's ability to read well. I can pick up any English language paper, scan the headlines for articles that interest me, and then either skim them or delve into them and absorb every word. Of course it took me almost twenty years of schooling to get to that point. As good as my spoken Turkish has become, I've spent ridiculously little time reading or writing the language; never mind that newspapers are written in a more formal style than is spoken, with unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar. As a result, reading a Turkish newspaper article involves me struggling slowly, line by line, dictionary in hand, and reminds me of trying to get through a French reading assignment in junior high.

If I lived in Istanbul, I could pick up English language newspapers and magazines quite easily. For a price, of course; an issue of Vogue costs around 25 Lira, or about $20cdn. But out here, only the major booksellers carry international press, and then sporadically. So for someone like me who hates to sit idly and tries to fill every spare minute doing something, preferably reading, forgetting to stuff a book in one's bag for that train ride or wait at the dentist is agonizing. There's no such thing in my life anymore as the hasty mid-week pick-up-to-pass-the-time paper or magazine.

Interestingly, I rarely visit the website of any major newspaper, which begs the question, why do I miss the papers so much? Perhaps it's more about the feel of the thing, the way people speak of the smell of books. I think this Sunday, I'll pick up a section of my husband's Hurriyet, open it up and hold it in front of me, looking at its colourful pictures and turning the pages. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get more satisfaction out of that than I think!