The e-reader vs. physical book debate misses the real issue.

I keep seeing people argue about which format is better for book clubs. But no one talks about the note-taking problem. Last month I tried to find a specific passage I highlighted in my Kindle for our discussion on chapter 8. It took me twenty minutes to scroll through all my highlights because the search function only finds exact phrases. Meanwhile the guy with the paperback just flipped to a dog-eared page in ten seconds. Has anyone else noticed how much harder it is to prep for meetings with an e-reader?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_murphy361mo agoMost Upvoted

Got a buddy who runs a sci-fi book club and he learned this the hard way. He brought his Kindle to a meeting last spring for a discussion on this dense dystopian novel everyone loved. They got into a heated debate about a specific line that hinted at the ending and he swore he had it marked. He spent a solid ten minutes poking at his screen, scrolling through like 60 highlights, and finally just gave up and said he couldn't find it. Meanwhile the host just cracked open her paperback, licked her finger, and flipped right to the page with a sticky note on it. He came over the next day complaining that his "smart" device made him look like an idiot in front of the whole club. He sold that Kindle on Facebook Marketplace two weeks later and went back to buying dog-eared paperbacks.

gibson.sean1mo ago

That "licked her finger" part really gets me because it's exactly how it goes with physical books. I've been there myself, @eric_murphy36, and the truth is you just can't beat the muscle memory of a real book. My advice to your buddy would have been to use the "clippings" file on the Kindle and export his highlights to a text document before the meeting. It takes five minutes to sort them by location, and you can search for specific words way faster than scrolling through 60 highlights on a tiny screen. But honestly, if he's happier with paperbacks and sticky notes, he probably made the right call. There's something to be said for not having to fiddle with a device when you're trying to have a good conversation.