By Aurelia Seidlhofer and Marthe Rosholt
The eBook and its rising popularity is much more than just a replacement of the paperback – eBooks are changing the way we engage with literature and have simultaneously sparked an entirely new reading culture on London’s crowded carriages.
Troublesome tubes and busy buses make for an ideal environment for the compact e-reader, perfectly adept for the limited space in our cramped city and its format has also encouraged growth in certain book genres, while other genres have found it harder to go digital. Jon Howells, Waterstones spokesman says: “We’ve noticed that genre books such as thriller and romance have done well as eBooks on regular e-ink eReaders…Illustrated books and children’s books less so, though that is starting to happen on tablets.“
eReaders have been successful in giving privacy to commuters, a scarce luxury in a city made up of almost 5000 people per square kilometre. Gone are the days of judging a book by its cover. And with this new found privacy, many have started to indulge in more ‘adult’ themes. The huge success of Fifty Shades of Grey proved that London’s eReaders’ lust after much sexier literature than they would like to admit.
But despite eReaders being credited for Londoners’ sexual liberation through literature, their sex lives might not necessarily reap the rewards. Men have complained it has become much harder to pick up a woman on the tube now the digital age has killed book covers. iPads don’t make for good pick-up lines and you could risk hitting on someone who reads something like ‘A Brief Guide to the Supernatural: Ghosts, Vampires and the Paranormal’.
Listen to what Londoners say about their eReaders
Some issues remain to be solved around London’s eReading culture but one thing is certain, the army of Kindles, NOOKS and iPads are likely to put up a good fight in dominating the book shelf.
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