Not Ideal

I'm reading The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare right now. It was on sale for five bucks in the iBookstore about a month ago and trailers for the movie had piqued my interest, so I bought it. This post isn't about the book (which I'm conflicted about), though.

I only mention the book to explain why it is that I've finally realized that I don't like the experience of reading on e-readers. That's not to say that I'm not a fan of e-readers; I think it's great that I can carry around the complete works of Jane Austen on my iPhone (thank you, free Project Gutenberg e-books). It's just that e-readers are not ideal for reading a book for the first time.

I keep finding myself wanting to go back and look for things in the book (usually because a character will say something about x and I don't remember that character knowing about x), but I don't. Rifling through the pages of a physical book to remind myself of something is second nature to me, but going back through the pages of a digital book feels like too much work. Maybe if I read more books on my iPad I would become comfortable doing that, but I doubt it. Like I said, it's not ideal.

On a completely separate topic: Jane Austen is officially going to appear on the £10 note. However, the Austen-adorned currency will not go into circulation until 2017. That gives me plenty of time to save for my trip to the UK.