BTT: Interactive?

BTT: Interactive? (from Booking Through Thursday)

With the advent (and growing popularity) of eBooks, I’m seeing more and more articles about how much “better” they can be, because they have the option to be interactive … videos, music, glossaries … all sorts of little extra goodies to help “enhance” your reading experience, rather like listening to the Director’s commentary on a DVD of your favorite movie.

How do you feel about that possibility? Does it excite you in a cutting-edge kind of way? Or does it chill you to the bone because that’s not what reading is ABOUT?

I've been reading the complete Sherlock Holmes stories.  I own a massive trade paperback version but, because I want to keep it in mint condition, I am only reading it when I am at home and reading it in ebook version when away from home.  For me, the best feature ever about ebooks is the dictionary function that allows me to get a definition of words I don't know.  This is particularly beneficial when reading older fiction such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, etc.  Unfortunately, it does not work for foreign languages in my iBooks app on my iPhone4.

I am one of those people who reads both print books and ebooks.  I like ebooks for their portability and my ability to have a huge stack of books on my phone.  But I love holding a print book in my hand.  I love the artistry of the covers that some of my ebooks don't have.  I am not one-or-the-other.  As long as I am reading, I don't care what format.  Even listening to someone read to you (audiobook) still counts as reading.  Your brain has absorbed the information just the same.  Who cares how you read as long as you do it?

Read on,
Paula