Bought my first iBook yesterday!  For those of you who have an Apple iPhone it’s the orange icon with an open book embedded somewhere in your phone…

Honestly, I really didn’t even know the app existed until last week.  I feel like Apple updates the phones so often and add new apps that I am unaware of, apparently, and it becomes hard to keep track along with all the other apps I have on my phone.

Anyway a while ago, I was thinking about buying a Kindle, but didn’t want to waste the money if I discovered that I don’t even like reading books on a screen.  So I decided to go with purchasing Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko on the iBooks app and so far it has been and interesting experience…  Don’t get me wrong I love Leslie Marmon Silko, but honestly I really don’t know if I like reading on a screen.  I actually find it really hard to focus.  I keep switching back and fourth between scrolling and page flipping and then I keep adjusting the font (some days it’s too large, other days I can barely read it).

I think I like the appeal of physical books, because I can touch them, run my fingers through the pages; I can look at the front and back cover.  Instead I feel like I am just visualizing things, like the physical book in my hands, what the back cover looks like.  Even the front cover pops up for less than two seconds on the iBooks app and goes away, I had to take a screenshot (in two seconds) to actually get a look at the cover art – how frustrating!

However, if you enjoy reading books online, but don’t want to get a Kindle, try the iBooks app.  On the app, some books are free and others you have to pay for (like everything else in this world).  The good thing about the app is that it lets you skip pages, bookmark other pages, scroll through or turn page by page and make the font bigger or smaller; it’s really not bad if you enjoy reading on a screen.  For my old-fashioned self, I think I will just mosey into the inner depths of the library and run my hand along the stacks of books that I so prefer reading to digitized versions.  There’s just something about getting lost in the stacks that I can’t get over; the smell of the books, etc.  Even though I will finish my iBook, my next read will be a physical copy.

Do you have a preferred method of reading?  Do you prefer to print things out or get a physical copy or are you OK reading on a screen?