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Of chairs and e-books
April 8, 2007 | 3:36 am
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By David Rothman
I’m a laze-back PDA guy who hates reading e-books hour after hour on a desktop machine. Let me stretch out on the couch or elsewhere.
But what if you feel otherwise? With a desktop, for example, it will be easier to enjoy sophisticated interactive e-books. Any decent solutions out there in the chair department—to make reading more comfortable.
The class divide of chairdom
Wandering around the local Staples and Office Depot, I discovered that a grand class divide exists within the world of chairs.
High-entry plebes, as I’ll call them—writers, secretaries and others spending hour after hour on actual typing—should consider buying task chairs. The good ones will let you adjust such variables as tilt, lower-back support mechanisms, and the heights of the basic back support, seat and arms.
Ah! But there’s the catch. Typically you can’t lean back in a task chair the way you can in a manager’s chair or executive chair, which, by the way, will come with a softer seat—the very kind of thing that I’d cherish as an e-book reader. I don’t see inexpensive chairs that masterfully blend in the data-entry-related wrinkles with the kickback-and-relax ones.
For writer-readers
Interestingly, one possibility for writer-readers might be a meshbacked multifunction task chair now selling for $149 at Staple’s, although it’s far from chair nirvana. See photo.
For mere readers
For mere readers—well, we’re in the land of the executive chairs or maybe even La-Z-Boy-style recliners if you have the right stand for the screen, and I’d be curious what TeleBlog readers would recommend at a reasonable cost. It doesn’t matter where you live. People everywhere might be interested in why—from an e-book perspective—you chose a certain chair.
Related: Wikipedia items on office chairs and chair categories
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Comments:
I have always sworn by the local Goodwill, St. Vinnie’s, or whatever your closest equivalent is. Sometimes it’s best to scout them out. One Goodwill in Everett has always been lucky for me when it comes to finding books (Chomsky at the goodwill??!), while the Goodwill in Falcon Heights, MN was terrific for furniture and clothing because all the rich folk dumped their stuff off there. If I was looking for a cheap chair for office or just relaxing, the Goodwill closest to the richest nearby neighborhood is the way to go.
Sadly, my Most Comfortable Chair Ever had to be left behind in MN when I migrated back to the west coast. Sigh. And that one I found free on the curb.
Ooh! That reminds me–college neighborhoods at the end of the quarter. Students leave the most amazing and wonderful things sitting on the curbs for the trash man. I would walk a block, and furnish my apartement; bookshelves, desks, beds, lamps, chairs. It was awesome.
I ended up spending $250 on a chair at Office Depot. The tags rate chairs by hours of daily use. I chose one that said 7-8 hours or something like that. I’ve had a problem with carpal tunnel and sometimes even slight back problems. The main reason I went with this chair was not only comfort but the sense that the chair would take a lot of wear and tear. My previous chair (which I spent 150 dollars on) worked fine for a while, but then I broke one of the controls, and so for the remainder of the time the chair was a pain.
the chair I bought was a vast improvement. A few things I’ve noticed though. First, setting the height of the chair and the arms right is important. There are online guidelines for how to calculate this.
Second, I frequently switch between casual reading mode (with lots of flexibility on the back) and working mode (with a firm back). I find I spend about 75% of my chair time in this casual reading mode.
Any ‘readers’ out there with thoughts along these lines, looking for inexpensive alternatives: try out the various patio chairs/recliners. They used to be marketed as ‘zero-gravity’ chairs though Target, Wal*Mart and others name them variously these days. You can find them for about $50, and there should be some on sale this time of year.
The angle from head to lap is a bit more obtuse than in a regular recliner, so you should definitely bring your laptop, or a book, into the store, sit in the recliner, test out various levels of reclining, and see how you like it.
I’d love to find an indoor chair like my outdoor “banana chair” – I don’t know what people in other countries call them, they are a fold up recliner with adjustable top and bottom parts. With appropriately placed cushions they can be so comfortable for reading. Laying back in bed or on a recliner I can read for hours at a time, but in an office chair my attention span is much shorter.
One trick we leart at work was to get a foot rest, like the ones secretaries use. Even having your feet slightly elevated can take a lot of pressure off your lower back and hip joints.
I swear by Eames Chairs. They are just for reading- You can’t type very well in one, but they tilt back and are supremely comfortable.