Why I’m making 2025 my year of dead-tree books

11/08/2024, 10:54 AM
fastcompany.com

Over the past 17 years or so, I have happily paid for hundreds of e-books—everything from reference works to history to novels to comics. Having immediate access to all of them on a device that fits in my pocket ranks among my favorite miracles of the digital age.

For 2025, however, I have a new reading mantra: Fewer electrons, more paper. My goal is to do some reading of printed books every day. By the end of the year, I hope to have read more of them in their entirety than I have in years.

Why would I, a longtime devotee of e-books, choose to spend less time with them? E-reading does have its critics: According to some studies, comprehension of what you’ve read suffers when it’s from a screen rather than paper. A variety of other adverse outcomes are allegedly associated with digital reading, from poor sleep to (I just learned) dry eyes.

But I’m not cutting back on digital reading for any of these reasons. I’m doing it to give print a chance at restoring the joy it offered when it was a bigger part of my life.

It’s not like I have to go out of my way to acquire hardcovers and paperbacks to read. My home is bulging with them in ever-increasing quantities, since I still love to get lost in a good bookstore and it’s tough to leave without buying something, or several somethings. (E-book stores, by contrast, are utilitarian at best and have lately become awash in AI-generated spam and scams.) Just getting through the volumes piled on my nightstand will keep me busy for a while.

Whether I gain deeper comprehension of a book when I read the printed version, I’m not sure. But paper is unquestionably far more immersive than screen reading. Even on a dedicated e-reader instead of a phone or tablet, there’s no way an e-book can command 100% of your attention; it’s just too tempting to flit over to other titles in your library. By contrast, paper books are the ultimate purpose-built devices—free of competing distractions such as notifications and social media, delightfully bespoke in format, and sometimes fascinating just as objects. (Relevant side note: My friend David Gerstein recently cowrote the definitive book about Donald Duck, packed with more than 11 pounds of richly illustrated information about the cartoon duck—and no, it isn’t available as an e-book.)

Bottom line: If you’re into the full visceral experience of reading rather than skimming and searching, can deal with the bulk, and aren’t in a dimly lit room, paper books are just better.

Another benefit of leaning into printed books is that it’ll create a clear boundary between business hours and personal time. I spend something like 98% of my workday staring at various screens. Only rarely do I find myself touching paper. That’s okay: Work-related reading is generally more about expedience than bonding with the material. By contrast, the moments I carve off for printed books will be pure Me Time. And who can’t use more of that?

As relevant as print remains, I can’t help but think that the gap between it and e-reading reflects an opportunity blown by the tech industry. E-books first gained momentum way back in 2007, when Amazon shipped its first Kindle (here’s my original review). In some ways, they’ve barely progressed as a craft since then. Wildly different works get crammed into the same generic templates; typography is usually pedestrian at best. Instead of getting more soothingly booklike, the Kindle’s interface has grown more cacophonous with features over time. That’s no way to catch up with print’s inherent pleasantness. There’s nothing inherently clunky about digital design. But e-books haven’t even caught up with the web’s ability to deliver good taste, visual ambition, and custom-built portals into unique reading experiences, let alone matched print’s centuries of refinement on those fronts. For example, the Steve Jobs book Make Something Wonderful is way nicer as a website than as an e-book from Apple’s Book Store.

If e-books lived up to their full potential, they might have trounced print as thoroughly as other forms of digital media have done to their physical forebears. Instead, data from the Association of American Publishers shows them making up only about 10% of the book market by dollar sales, with hardbacks and paperbacks still dominant. I wouldn’t have predicted that, and even as a mostly electronic reader, I find it reassuring. Book fans, it seems, have spoken.

Back to my plans for this year. I’m not swearing off e-books altogether, and I won’t measure my success in terms of the number of print books read. This is about quality time, not quantity, and the worst outcome of all would be it feeling like a chore. How it’ll go, we’ll see—and I promise a follow-up report in January 2026.

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A great AI newsletter. There are a seemingly infinite number of AI newsletters out there, many of which make for rewarding reading (including my colleague Mark Sullivan’s AI Decoded). One of my favorites is One Useful Thing, by Wharton professor Ethan Mollick. He’s excited about the technology’s potential, levelheaded about its limitations, and focused on its real-world impact, particularly as a productivity tool. I learn something new from every issue.

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