I am, and have always been, an early adopter. I have a Kindle and absolutely love it. I use it a bit less now that I also have an iPad, but I use both. I read more on the iPad when my wife is trying to sleep, since it has a backlight.
My only complaint, up until this point, is that it’s hard to flip back. When I can’t remember if I’ve seen a certain character before, or want to check something from the beginning, it’s much easier in a paperback or hardback to quickly scan pages. It’s not easy on the Kindle or iPad, no matter what anyone else tells you.
This weekend, however, I stumbled upon a second issue. I have no idea how long a book is when I’m reading it digitally.
Sure, there’s some meter at the bottom which tells you you’re 63% done. Or, Location 6712-6745 – whatever that means. But there’s no real sense of length.
I bring this up because, while at my in-laws over Thanksgiving, I chose to read Stephen King’s Under the Dome. I enjoyed it. I even stayed up way too late on Saturday night to finish it. But I had no idea it was freaking 1100 pages until after I got home. Eleven hundred pages?!?!?!
I don’t know if it speaks to Mr. King’s skill that I didn’t realize it, or to my skills as a reader how quickly I finished it, but I think the whole thing might have gone down differently if I had any idea how long that book was. I feel a little bit like Milo. I don’t know whether this feature is a good thing or a bad thing.
