Why you should get an e-reader, read ebooks and stop the abuse of BB1M

Book lovers are often calm, well-mannered people. But some of the most civilised of them can turn into merciless keyboard warriors if you bring up the great ebook versus print debate.

It’s a partisan issue among book lovers. Much like how some politicians are trying to “kafir-mengkafir” each other, book lovers can go to the extent of “excommunicating” ebooks as inauthentic and not “real” books. I’ve seen some swearing that they will never buy an ebook (Perhaps this is our version of jihad). There’s also some wild speculation that paper books will be replaced by ebooks in the long run and those who refuse to adapt are akin to the Luddites who protested against labour-replacing machinery during the Industrial Revolution.

Much like everything else, the paper vs digital debate can be a false dichotomy if you are blinded by partisanship. Trying to settle this debate once and for all is similar to defending a universal absolutist moral theory. It will be a futile attempt if we demand to know what is the right thing to do all the time, because a good moral theory will recognise the timing and circumstances of its application, and thus it can only offer non-specific rules and criteria which will then be left to be interpreted and applied according to context.

I used to have Nexus 7, the entry-level tablet by Google. It’s good to read PDF files on the tablet because it’s fast. But reading on your tablet or smartphone screen will cause eye strain after a while. Artificial blue light emitted by the LCDs is bad for your eyes, especially in the dark. If you really want to read ebooks on a regular basis, I’d recommend buying an e-reader and installing Calibre on your computer for format conversion. I’m using Kindle Paperwhite, but there’s also a tonne of other options including Kindle (not sold directly in Malaysia, but you can order at kindlemalaysia.com), Nook, Kobo, and Hanlin and iRiver Story (sold at MPH Online).

Why an e-reader? The device is made exclusively for reading. It utilises e-ink technology and reflect light like paper. Electronic ink is a display technology that mimics the appearance of ordinary ink on paper. This may make it more comfortable to read, easy on the eyes and can last much longer (Kindle Paperwhite battery life can easily last more than a week with regular use). Though you can use it for browsing the Internet, it’s not as fast as the tablet because it is designed purely for reading.

Now that we have the preliminary device discussion out of the way, when’s a good time for reading ebooks? Paper books are great and I’m assuming that most readers are fans of paper books, so I will be talking more about ebooks. The careful reader will notice that I’m not suggesting ebooks as replacement for paper books, but rather as a complementary partner.

Ebooks are great for classics and free public domain books, short reads, as a companion on a long read, an alternative when the paper book version is expensive or unavailable or an option for your side readings, and during travels.

The first example is a clear cut advantage. There are so many classics and public domain books which you can instantly download and read without cost. If you build a library to house all these digital books, you will probably need a building the size of Putrajaya. I’m not kidding!

A tiny fraction of those free reads include the works of Plato, Aristotle, Edgar Allan Poe, John Maynard Keyes, David Hume, Milton, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, J.S. Mill, Mark Twain, Dickens, Robert Frost, Kafka and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Keep in mind that I’m only talking about those you can download legally. If you include the stuff you can get from Torrent and other websites, there’s an unlimited pandora box of books! Chomsky, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Paulo Coelho, Fitzgerald, Neil Gaiman, Reza Aslan, Tolkien, Khaled Hosseini – you name it.

Short reads mean books that are for light reading, pleasure reading, or short reading. I have a good time reading Dostoevsky’s “Notes from the Underground” on my e-reader, but it will take me forever to read Marx’s “Capital” on the e-reader. For long reads and books that require careful study, there’s no substitute for paper books. However, the ebook is a useful resource as a companion to long reads.

While I don’t read Marx’s “Capital” with my Kindle Paperwhite, I have an ebook version of David Harvey’s “A Companion to Marx’s Capital”. By companion, I mean readings that supplement and help you to understand the main material, and which are perhaps not on top of our priority list compared to the tonnes of other books we can purchase. Therefore free downloadable ebooks are just the right option.

That brings us to cost and side readings. When paper books are expensive, and if we don’t necessarily need the particular books, e-readers (and in consequence, ebooks) are a worthy investment. Once, I visited Kinokuniya and saw the political science and philosophy books. To my horror, the prize of one book is perhaps ten times that of my daily meal, ranging between RM50 and RM150. Syed Hussein Alatas’s “Myth of the Lazy Native” was priced at RM90, and many books are between RM40 and RM80. We cannot afford to buy many books regularly, but we can afford a device which will give us access to read that many books regularly.

Also, there are books that you may want to read but for which you are not ready to make the investment. For example, I want to read Carl Sagan’s “Cosmo” and Walter Lippmann’s “Public Opinion” for fun and general interest/knowledge. But I’d rather invest in other more important books which relate to my studies compared to these side readings.

To gain the best of both worlds, for books that I consider “must haves”, I purchase the paper books. For books that are my side readings or/and expensive, I download the ebooks. Ebooks are also great for self-help books. I would like to look up “7 Habits” every now and then but I can't carry it all the time, so having it on my Paperwhite solves the problem.

As for the last example, which is also the most frequently cited argument for ebooks, I like to carry my Kindle Paperwhite whenever I am travelling. It’s light and small and can house hundreds of books.

Of course, there are numerous advantages of paper books. The feel of a paper book and the joy of touching and smelling the paper. You can’t give an ebook to a friend and expect him/her to react the same way as when receiving a paper book.

Personally, I feel translation matters. I downloaded an ebook version of Nietzsche “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” but the translation is a bit obscure and outdated. So I got the paper book translated by Walter Kaufmann and it feels much better. For Russian literature, public domain books of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky usually use Constance Garnett’s translation, which is good, but the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky feels smoother and mirrors the original works more closely.

While there is unlimited international content, the Malaysian ebook market is a long way from gaining traction. According to Amir Muhammad, founder of Buku Fixi, “In 2013, our ebook sales were 1%. In 2014, it became 3%. But I don't foresee it increasingly dramatically unless the price of print books becomes high or distribution becomes difficult. I suppose it will increase somewhat when iBooks and Kindle become available in Malaysia.”

My feeling is that ebooks shouldn’t compete with paper books as a product. What the ebook market can do is to sell access. As an example, Netflix will lose out if it sells digital content as products. What they do is to sell access to a tonne of digital content and subscribers pay a monthly fee to access that content.

Regardless of the book format, the whole point is to read. Paper book or electronic book is a medium for you to read, and if you don’t read, what’s the point of having a preference anyway? This brings us to Baucar Buku 1 Malaysia (BB1M).

BB1M is grossly misused, so much so that the Malaysian Book Industry Chamber made a media statement criticising the misuse of BB1M. This includes using BB1M to buy clothes, tudung, food, glasses, computer equipments, handphone accessories, and even trade for cash.

Wake up, students! You may be thinking that you get to exploit this BB1M but what you are really doing is robbing yourself. You are depriving yourself of a library of knowledge and a world of unknown possibilities. If knowledge is power, books are the bridge to that power. Get rid of this Ali-Baba syndrome and invest in yourself. You are what you do and read. As the saying goes, a reader lives a thousand lives before he/she dies, and those who don’t read good books have no advantage over those who can’t.

The fault partly lies with some bookstores and exhibitions. They sell all the things mentioned above in their “bookstores”. Worse, many bookstores sell mainly reference books for UPSR, PT3, SPM and STPM. Are these even books? All right, they are important but they shouldn’t be the only books available in bookstores!

Indeed, finding a good bookstore in Malaysia is quite a task. The few good ones I know are Penang GerakBudaya, Times, Borders, Kinokuniya and KL GerakBudaya. You can get a rare find in Chowrasta Market if you are willing to do a treasure hunt. Public libraries and university libraries also have good collections. The Perdana Library has a tonne of ebooks and PDF files which you can download from their website.

The difficulty of getting into a good bookstore is compensated by the ease of ordering books these days. For example, Dubook Press and Fixi accept orders through their website and WhatsApp. Facebook presence such as Kolektor Buku2 SeMalaysia, Bacaan Liar, and Pelita Dhihin makes it even easier to look for the books that you want.

Going to a bookstore is like visiting a cafe. It’s not as much about the coffee (though it matters) as the ambience of the cafe. A good cafe makes you happy and helps you forget your problems. It’s a therapeutic ritual. And reading a book, in whatever format, is carrying a conversation in that cafe.

My first philosophy lecturer, Ms Parvinder Singh from Taylor’s College, says that the history of philosophy is a conversation between philosophers.

I think books are the medium through which we carry the conversation with strangers and dead authors who know us so little, yet so well.

And if you read what everybody else is reading (such as “Suamiku Encik Sotong” and the teenage romance novels flooding the book market), you can only end up like everybody else. Read something better than yourself, something that is beyond your current capabilities. That’s the only way to grow and level up.

Now excuse me, I need to attend a coffee date with Nietzsche. – March 21, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.