HOBAR/DH_OU Seminar Series 6

‘I tend to prefer real books to e-books’: negotiating the realness and bookness of e-novels 

Speaker: Laura Dietz (Anglia Ruskin University)

This presentation will explore what ‘real’ and ‘book’ mean for readers of e-novels.  Novels are the most popular form of e-book, read by the million on tablet and smartphone and e-ink reader, yet to many (including many who buy and read them) enduringly separate from ‘actual BOOKS’.  Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from a four-year study of e-book readership, the presentation will examine how contradictory, yet coexisting, conceptions of realness interact with the evolving metaphor of the book, and how readers and book-lovers incorporate elusive, protean e-books alongside ‘proper, print books’ in their reading lives and reading identities.