I was sitting on the front porch of the cabin, reading Walden. On my iPad. Actually, it’s become more of Libby’s iPad, which doesn’t bug me too much.

We took the iPad with us when we spent the night at the cabin a couple of weeks ago. Not having electricity out there, we don’t have reading lamps, so when night fell, we were pretty much restricted by what we were left able to do in the dark. Not so with a back-lit ebook reader, however.

It’s a novelty. The iPad, aside from being an ebook reader, does nothing my laptop can’t also do (and do better). And as a book reader, it doesn’t do much that a paperback can’t do as well. (So far, the only thing I’ve observed that the iPad can do while I am reading is look up words I don’t know the definition of, which is certainly the case when I’m reading Walden.) But I’ve dropped plenty of paperbacks and they still work fine when I pick them up. And I’ve never had a low battery message on a paperback. And I could even throw a paperback across the room if I hated it.

I’m reluctant to get sucked into the new book marketing paradigm. The iPad can use some of the services and not others. (For example, I can’t download any books from my local library onto it.) The services I have looked into seem pop culture heavy. I’m unlikely to read the latest bestseller, but the novelists I am interested in aren’t available on the services I’ve looked into. I suppose I could find them, but do I want to?

I’ve observed that I cannot read out at the cabin. Too much is going on. I want to watch the woods and the lake. I am constantly listening to the birds and the breeze. When I’m out there I’m always thinking of the next thing I can go do or how much I can enjoy the stupor provided by the comfy chairs.

Like most things, though, Pablo will likely evolve.

Missouri calendar:

• Bobolinks migrate from Argentina and some nest in northern Missouri.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal    Source