On Prep4War, as you know, we generally recommend that you favour (“real”) paper books; the latter having the immense advantage of operating without energy, except that of a wet finger.
Against the current, we offer here an article on the electronic reader.
Is it a piece of equipment to adopt, as a prepper, survivalist, or autonomist?
We will try to answer…
What is a reader?
The electronic reader, an e-reader, is a device similar to a touchpad and designed for reading.
Depending on the model, you can also listen to audiobooks, or music (listen to an epic symphony while reading “A Song of Ice and Fire”, what else?), and even surf the internet by connecting to Wi-Fi.
However, the comfort of navigation is so bad that you would only do that to punish your son who brings home from college a correspondence book full of warnings from the CPE…
What are the benefits of an e-reader?
The advantages of e-readers over paper books are numerous.
Ecological
Given the immense storage capacity (several thousand books for an average eReader without an added microSD card), and the capacity to read hundreds of thousands of pages, the ecological impact of the eReader is much lower than that of all paper books that it represents.
Dimensions and weight
An e-reader is lighter than an average paperback.
It has a tile shape and is therefore flat enough to slip into a BOB a hiking bag, or why not an EDC?
This format allows you to read in many different positions, even with one hand, which allows you to use the other to do other things (at your leisure, we are in a free country), and also allows you to read on your back, for example, without the pages falling on your face.
The format of the reader also allows you to read on the beach without fear that the sand will interfere between the pages, or that the wind will cause them to flap.
Most reading lights incorporate a front lighting system, very practical for reading in the marital bed without disturbing your significant other, or for reading in your tent without using up the batteries in your headlamp.
Ergonomic
Regarding ergonomics, you can adjust the font size, font style, format (portrait or landscape), margins, space between lines, etc.
It’s really customizable to suit your eyesight and not strain your eyes.
The technology used, electronic ink has nothing to do with the LCD technology of tablets and allows you to read for hours, like on a paper book, or even better in my opinion.
Readers integrate dictionaries. Very practical for reading a technical work for example, or a book in old French.
You can even, depending on the models, add your own dictionaries, including dictionaries of other languages. Tap the word you don’t understand, and if it’s in a foreign language, it will be translated! Otherwise, you will have the definition!
Autonomy
Autonomy is one of the big strengths of the reader since an average reader allows several weeks of daily reading before the battery runs out!
Indeed, the battery is only used when changing the page/image/interface. If the Wi-Fi and the backlight are off, the page you are viewing can remain “on” without draining the battery… This is the principle of electronic ink (e-ink).
In addition, these low-capacity batteries are very easily charged with small compact solar chargers such as SolarMonkey, or dynamo chargers…
And the books?
It is possible to obtain an immense quantity of books.
In addition: books that have passed into the public intellectual domain and which, although free of rights, are chargeable in bookstores since they obviously it is a manufactured object which has a cost.
In the digital version, it costs nothing to duplicate: it’s free!
You can also find a plethora of .pdf of all kinds on Good Reads, that you would never find in paper versions, or on sites such as Amazon for example!
Overall, paid books are cheaper in digital versions than printed ones, and they are regularly found on promotions for next to nothing.
In addition, they are easily found in pirated versions. Be careful, I do not encourage anyone to pirate a book! It is illegal and punishable by law.
However, on the subject of this site, in a situation of natural, economic disaster, civil war, or other emergencies, I believe that a court will not blame you for illegally downloading the book ” The Knot Guide for Nodeheads”. However, please respect the laws in force in your country.
On the economic side, the reader is easily repaired: its simple design (screen, printed circuit, battery, shell (back + front frame) and buttons, allows you to change a defective part yourself without prior skills.
So… the reader, a survivalist object?
You will have understood: in my opinion, in the middle of survivalism, an e-reader would be useful to you.
Imagine, a disaster.
Imagine you had to save your mother-in-law. Yes, yes, imagine…. good, bad example. So your wife. That’s more realistic, isn’t it?
So you want to save your wife who is stuck at the bottom of a well. Yes, she went down to get water necessary for your survival, but her rope broke in two (no, don’t think about her weight, otherwise the real disaster will no longer be the one that constitutes the initial framework of this scenario)…
… However, only a very specific knot will allow you to reunite the two strands in order to save her.
And this knot is described in “The knot guide for the heads of knots”.
And then, HAHA! You haven’t managed to remember all the techniques read in all the books potentially useful for survival, but you have YOUR READER!
In your reader, you have the explanations for tying the knot that will allow you to lift your wife, the explanations for treating her ankle, the explanations for orienting yourself with the stars to find human life, the explanations for reviving a vegetable garden and a farmyard with a minimum of means, as well as for fishing, etc.
In short, you carry with you thousands of books that can be useful to you for a whole host of things.
In conclusion, light and compact, long battery life and easy to recharge with a small device, large storage capacity, rustic therefore not very fragile and easy to repair the reader is definitely survivalist equipment.
You can find some great e-readers on Amazon, so I recommend going there and checking out hat you like. Here is a direct link to Amazon.
