How I rekindled a relationship with an old flame and fell in love with ‘real’ books all over again

T HE drawer in my bedside locker is full of things I no longer need but lack the willpower to part with on a permanent basis – a kind of storage purgatory for the flotsam and jetsam of life: discarded clothes tags with replacement buttons I am convinced I might need someday; a half-empty pack of antihistamines I’m saving for the next holiday; an old ID card where the face staring back at me reminds me of a time and place I am not quite ready to consign to history.

But in among all this random stuff something stands out, mainly because it is worth more than all the rest put together. We fell out of love quite recently, despite the hours of pleasure it afforded me, and it hasn’t seen the light of day in months. I am pretty sure the battery is dead and clusters of dust have gathered in its sleek curves. It’s my Kindle.

Our relationship followed a pretty familiar trajectory. Girl meets Kindle, girl resists its advances before finally succumbing to the e-reader’s charms, diving headfirst into a long and joyous union full of lazy lies-ins, romantic city breaks and cosy nights by the fire.

After a few years, it started to fall apart and a distance developed. Eventually, I committed the ultimate betrayal and went back to my ex and now a teetering tower of books sits under that bedside locker – real, physical books with their lovingly printed pages full of promise and possibility.

I had been feeling quite bad about how it all ended but I found my guilt somewhat assuaged this week when I realised I am not the only lapsed bibliophile lured back to the paper book’s loving embrace. The UK press have been reporting that e-book sales have dipped 17pc in the last year, while printed books seem to be experiencing the first signs of a resurgence after years of slowing sales.

So why have I, and all these other apparently equally fickle bookworms, forsaken our e-readers?

When the Kindle first came onto the market, I was only a few years out of university. I left with an English literature degree, a vague sense of entitlement and a large collection of books that included everything from ‘Beowulf’ to Chinua Achebe to Joyce. For many years I considered the battered cardboard boxes I kept them in to be my most valuable possessions. So when a boyfriend bought me a Kindle for Christmas, I was rendered almost

speechless by the apparent insensitivity of it. How could I ever forgo everything I love about books – their feel, their texture, the musty smell of one that hasn’t been opened in years – just to worship at the altar of convenience?

My indignation waned after six months or so, and I reluctantly packed my Kindle for a long-haul trip. Three weeks later I returned home a convert, almost evangelically in my enthusiasm for the device. It was so handy, so easy to use. I could pack shelves of books into my hand luggage without a moment’s worry about the dreaded pre-boarding weigh-in. I could drift off to sleep with it in my hands and there was no weighty thud to jolt me from my near-slumber. After a few years I even upgraded to a Kindle White so I could read late into the night, long after my other half had insisted the light be turned off.

Then, last year, something changed. I started to resent my Kindle. It became just another device I had to lug around and another screen I had to stare at.

And compared to my other ‘tech’, the Kindle now seemed so onedimensional, so clunky and, to be honest, a little uncool. Sat next to my iPad or iPhone, it looked like one of those Fisher Price approximations of a tablet that people let their kids play with. I no longer felt ahead of the curve, I felt I was lagging about five years behind it.

Meanwhile, paper books looked even more desirable than before. Majestic hardbacks and quirkily packaged paperbacks called to me from stylishly curated shelves in independent book shops where cloth bags proclaiming ‘Books are my Bag’ seemed to mock my relationship with my Kindle, calling me out for going over to the (Paperwhite) dark side. This change in my attitude also coincided with me becoming a homeowner, pushing a lifelong obsession with so-called ‘shelf porn’ to dangerous new heights. I prowled around Ikea like a book-starved predator, running my finger along the spines of the (I’m pretty sure false) titles crammed into its Billy bookcases.

A few months ago, my neglected Kindle found its way into my ‘drawer of shame’ and I decided to release my old college books from their cardboard prison in the attic. I bought bookshelves for the various nooks of my new home, and started to frequent those achingly hip independent stores I had once felt unentitled to visit. I may have even treated myself to a cloth proclaiming my return to the fold.

There are rumours the death of the e-reader is being exaggerated, and that it is simply the case that all the people who want a Kindle have bought one. Perhaps – but the e-reader lacks the ability to reinvent itself that keeps us going back to replace our other devices with their latest iteration. There has been much chatter recently in tech circles about the demise of the iPhone, but the debate is about what comes next – virtual-reality headsets, pimped-up Siris and the like. But the prospect of sitting back, twiddling my thumbs as reams of text scroll before my eyes like some kind of personal teleprompter is unlikely to lure me away from paperbacks.

So, for now, it’s a case of the Kindle is dead, long live the book. They are, once again, definitely my bag.