TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home

News & views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics
May 21st, 2007

‘The Ultimate eBook Experiment: Reading in the Bathtub’

By David Rothman

Bathtub readingFrom Margaret Atwood to Arthur C. Clarke, the same guy who imagined e-book-style devices years ago, writers have complained you can’t do E in the bathtub.

Well, Chris Steib compared P and E experiences—a paper copy of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 against text as displayed on a Sony Reader. And the winner? The Reader. Details here (via Print Is Dead).

Of course, Steib could try a $100 used Dell Axim (with a backlit screen) in an OtterBox if he’s really dead serious about watery reading amid the steam of a hot bath. I myself recommend Moby Dick as a test book.

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2 Responses to “‘The Ultimate eBook Experiment: Reading in the Bathtub’”

  1. You can fit just about any PDA inside a Zip lock bag. Zip the bag - presto! Water tight protection for bath tub reading for just a couple of pennies.

  2. Or you could just avoid dropping it in the water. I regularly read in the tub and haven’t dropped a p- or e-book there once in the last 30 years.

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