Reading on an ereader, I seem to lose all of the “publisher’s metadata”: there is no longer any hint of what type of book this is — no cover to judge, no binding, no typography to tell if it’s a serious literary thing or a pulpy time-passer or an old forgotten once-loved.
It’s probably good this way. Lets the text speak for itself. Mainly the loss harms my ability to recall a book, more than the way I receive its words. No more recollection of 20th century authors as dusty orange Penguins with failing glue. Now they sit alongside every other of any time whose surname begins as theirs does, or is (as arbitrarily) co-alphabetically titled.
Perhaps what I’m looking for is a chronology of literature? Victorians vs. post-war makes more sense than the alphabet as a reading criteria!