Editor’s Note: Cruising sailors well know the joys of pulling into a marina or gathering space that dedicates a shelf or three to the nautical version of the lending library—even if that’s just a pile of books next to the laundry machines. It’s like beachcombing or treasure hunting, rooting through the titles. You just never know what you’ll find. But in these days of e-readers, one wonders how long the pulpy pleasure of the boatyard book swap will last? Which begs the question: books on board, or e-readers? Two sailors engage the debate.
The E-Reader Argument—A Pirate’s Guide
By Annie Dike
Swap my paperbacks for an e-reader? Not this sailor. That’s how I initially felt. Why choose a delicate digital device when I could casually toss my paperback onto any surface (salty, blazing hot, sandy, even a little wet) and savor the best perk of being a paperback reader—the glorious Pandora’s Box that is a marina book swap? Eventually, however, there was one benefit to the sleek device that turned me into a hybrid paper/e-reader: the ability to plunder! In true pirate style you can pillage many sources to stock your chest with dozens of free books. After free rum, what more does a pirate need?
Best Device
Kindle. The Oasis, 11th generation, or (preferred) the Paperwhite. After informally polling many cruisers, it seems Kindle’s Paperwhite is the most popular. It holds a charge for weeks. The screen reads like a book, even in harsh sunlight, and you can read in the dark. Also, getting free books through Amazon/Kindle has proven superior to other devices/platforms. However, the Nook (from Barnes & Noble) is also a popular option, as well as the Kobo Clara.
Pillage Free Books on Amazon
Simply type “free books” into Amazon and the options instantly populate, dozens. Now, will you find vampires, sorcerers, and scantily clad ranch hands? Of course, although some of those are wildly entertaining. But the free books on Amazon are worth picking through. I’ve found many trending thrillers and bestsellers that were well worth the hunt and $0.00 price tag. Know you will need internet to download the books onto your e-reader, so be sure to “provision up” your device before you go off grid.
Plunder Your Local Library
Check with your local library on the requirements to get a library card—likely a form of ID showing you live in their geographic area. Many libraries offer a virtual catalog via OverDrive, Libby, or Hoopla, platforms you can log onto to download free library e-books to your e-reader. The minimal constraints—wait times for bestsellers (adds to the suspense!) and limited check-out times (often 21 days)—are well worth the hours of free reading. Project Gutenberg is an online platform that also offers a great range of free classics that can be sent to your e-reader.
Share Your Kindle Library Books
On your Kindle, you can designate one additional adult (using their Amazon email) as part of your “household” to share your libraries. Pick a friend who is a voracious reader, and you’ll enjoy both the extra titles in your library as well as the fun discussions post-read.
Ask For E-Books as Gifts
Do you have family members who love to give you “boat gifts” (often breakable chip-and-dip sets in the shape of a sailboat)? Ask them to send a much more appreciated gift in the form of a free e-book to your e-reader. On Amazon, for most books there is a “Buy for Others” option where the book can be easily gifted via email (to a Kindle owner registered in the U.S.). Send relatives a book wish list and get much more joy out of sharing the thrill of the read after—rather than the tale of the broken chip dish.
Not Free, But Close: Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited
Many of us are already Amazon Prime members. The ability to ship oddball trinkets, tools, and boat parts to lockers or locations all over the world is simply too enticing. But a Prime membership (~ $15/month) also offers Prime-only access to many free (popular) e-books. In addition, Kindle Unlimited (~ $10/month) allows you to stock your Kindle with 20 free e-books at a time and offers many more trending bestsellers than Sheathed Love romances.
All of that in a treasure chest the size of your hand? Or hook? It’s worth a plunder.
The Case for Paper Books
By Robert Beringer
While cruising I meet all kinds of interesting people; they come from all walks of life and are as different as mist from mast, but one thing most of us have in common is that we are all voracious readers.
This of course is by necessity. Spending months on end in a shared living space smaller than an average bedroom would drive most people batty if they didn’t have relaxing and productive diversions. So we read books, print books, mostly. And there’s nothing that says, “someone lives on this boat” more than a row of titles neatly stacked in the salon.
Print books travel well and enhance the lives of those onboard. When stuck on a small boat waiting for favorable crossing weather at the anchorage in Miami Marine Stadium, I survived with a good supply of ramen, apples, and an old copy of Don Quixote. It was too rough to row in the dinghy, so I pitched, rolled, and turned the page: a new way to tilt at windmills! The succeeding trip through the islands was lovely, but there wasn’t a lot to do after the sun went down. I was eternally thankful for all those books on the shelf.
I’m not a technophobe; electronic tablets are also good to have onboard. They put a hundred portable books at your fingertips with no wait, free if you have a Hoopla or Libby subscription—and they save space. But I look at instruments all day; at the end of my watch, I need a hiatus from screens and technology. Reading a physical book is much more pleasurable, easier on the eyes, and keeps me connected to nature and tradition. And it may show my age, but electronic readers can be temperamental; one tap in the wrong place and—oh no!—you’re back at the beginning of the book.
Contrary to popular belief, there will always be a large percentage of books unavailable in electronic format. This is because some publishers don’t see the value in e-books, believing that they will hurt hard copy sales. Often they wait until sales of the title have bottomed out before releasing them as an e-book. And Amazon, which sells 300 million books annually, infamously hardballs its book vendors to offer e-books at a lower cost than the hard copy. So electronic media (and the internet) will never contain all the world’s knowledge; print books will always possess information you can obtain nowhere else.
Print books help you sleep better. In 2015, Harvard medical researchers discovered that natural sleep rhythms were disrupted by the “blue light” of electronic devices. Participants reading books on iPads, laptops, cell phones, and LED monitors four hours before bed took longer to fall asleep and had reduced next-morning alertness than when reading a print book.
Another thorny problem with electronic devices is people expect too much from them. To think that they will flawlessly display your books, movies, marine charts, and weather updates is setting yourself up for potential aggravation, if not disaster. And don’t forget to charge it. Nothing’s more frustrating than gearing up for a nice read and realizing you forgot to plug the thing in. A print book, conversely, can be read forever and needs only light to enjoy.
And once you read that book it becomes part of your intellectual journey, a valuable, long-lasting commodity that can be re-read by you and dozens of people over many years. “Books are a uniquely portable magic,” said Stephen King. It’s great to put a title by Tristan Jones or Patrick O’Brian into a fellow sailor’s hand and say, “You’ve got to read this!” Hopefully they’ll pay it forward to another sailor, and who knows how many lives it will improve before it falls apart.
For me it’s good to know that even as boats evolve into floating second homes and the world forges on into AI and more internet dependence, print books will always be ready to entertain, elucidate, and preserve great memories. As a bibliophile friend once enthused, “You can digitize the content of a book, but not its soul.”
November/December 2024
