I know that after I have written this I will be stabbed on my own front doorstep while bringing in the milk bottles, and that people will line up daily to relieve themselves on my grave and that my name will be stricken from all records (which will now be ephemeral, anyway), but I wanted to write a little something in defence of books.
People and the Internet have been talking to me about e-books recently, and just this morning I read something that seemed definitive enough that it made me wish to counter it. That was Stephen Theaker's article, 'Why aren't I reading my print books anymore?' I use the word 'defence' because an attack has been made. Although Mr. Theaker does say that, "Reading is nicer on the Kindle", it's telling that he doesn't give his article the title, 'Kindle is great (and that's why I spit upon printed books)'. No, the emphasis of the title in on the printed books themselves, and a negative emphasis – therefore an attack. Therefore a defence is justified.
I actually have to go out in a minute, so I want to try and make this quick. I don't use emoticons, so if anyone is tempted to be offended by anything I write here, they are free to imagine I would have used an emoticon in that particular place to indicate that I wanted to express my opinion but get away with it by not really meaning it, too.
Anyway, I'll go through this point by point, as that will be quickest and easiest.
If I finish reading a book on the Kindle, chances are I just open up the next book on the Kindle and start reading that. My tolerance for hunting through my bookcases for particular books has withered away to nothing, for one thing! But also, when I finish a book I'm rarely sitting in my study surrounded by my print books. I'm usually lying in bed. Sometimes I'm on a bus or a train, or at the in-laws, or at a friend's house. If print books aren't handy during that crucial handover from one book to another, they're locked out until the next time I finish a book; my ebooks are always close to hand.
Have to say, this doesn't mirror my reading habits at all. I don't just pick up the next book at hand. I actually choose which book to read next, if I have a choice. Sometimes an aleatory reading list can be interesting, but there are other ways of doing things – mixing it up, one might say.
In the past, I would see a book I wanted and buy it right away, because it would probably be gone the next day. Even now, with Amazon, new books can go out of print very quickly. With ebooks it's a bit different. The publisher may eventually withdraw the book from sale, but they're not going to run out of copies, or dither over whether to reprint. I don't need to hoard books any more. So instead of buying everything I see, I download a Kindle preview, and once I've actually started reading the book – and if I like it – I buy it.
Again, don't really relate to this at all. I'm actually trying hard to grasp what the point is here. There seems to be an emphasis on wanting things to hand now, or forgetting about them completely. Must say, that's not the way my brain operates. I might keep something in mind for years and years before I actually get round to it, including the purchase and reading of a book.
Now, I tend to only buy books on the day I'm going to read them. All those books on the shelves? I still might read them – someday – but probably not many of them.
Ditto.
Here's the nub of it. Paper books are not as much fun to read.
I'm not a booksniffer. Booksniffers are those people who, at the mention of ebooks, say things like "Ah, but you can't beat a real book", and accompany those words by opening out their hands as if they were the pages of a book, and for bonus points lift up the imaginary book to their noses for a sniff. They often close their eyes while doing this, which is an odd way to approach reading.
Here's where we get to the meaty stuff. Booksniffers. Yes.
He makes it sound most unsavoury, but the fact is that I am a very literal booksniffer. I sniff books. Literally. However, Mr. Theaker seems to have been enjoying the company not only of booksniffers but of mime artists. I have to say that I have never accompanied my advocacy of book-reading with the kind of mime described here, or otherwise acted as if I'm in some kind of coffee advert.
The strange thing is that, too often, they don't just express this idea as a personal preference, but hold it to be a universal truth, and are frequently shocked – and even angry – to hear people disagree.
Well… I don't know about this, but I do find some strange assumptions being made in this anti-book case, too, as if they are universal, like you can only ever choose to read the book that happens to be nearest to your hand at the moment of choosing.
They honestly believe that people who buy ebooks do it under protest, or through aesthetic weakness, or in the dazzle of novel technology (pun intended), and so on. Some will even say that people using ebooks are deluding themselves.
I think the reason that pro-book people make the kinds of assumptions mentioned is that advocates of e-books so often seem to be anti-pleasure and anti-enthusiasm. It's true that Mr. Theaker describes Kindle as "fun" and "nice", but he seems to shudder in horror at the kind of pleasure a booksniffer derives from their bibliophilia. Just to give a little more evidence, here's another article in which another journalist opines that e-books have made books virtually (pun intended) redundant.
Note the tone of suffocating apathy throughout, the sense of, "I can't even be bothered to wipe the drool of depression and trance-indifference from my own chin, that's how modern I am":
If I'm right about the status of books being in decline, book publishers have yet to feel the real pain. In 2009, sales dropped only 1.8 percent. But there are other measures, most of them anecdotal. Just a decade ago, I hoarded all of my books, refusing to sell them or give them away, because I didn't want to gamble that I wouldn't need them on short notice again. Finding a used, out-of-print, or rare book before AbeBooks, Alibris, and Amazon arrived was an expensive pain. You either had to prowl used bookstores, find a library with the title, or pay a stiff book-finders' fee. Now, thanks to resellers, I gladly purge my library now and again to make space. If I ever need a copy of Drudge Manifesto again, I'll be able to get it on the Web for a penny, plus shipping. A back of the envelope calculation reveals to me that the replacement price of the average volume in my personal library has dropped 20 percent to 40 percent in the Web era. So even if the status of books isn't falling, the value of them is.
At least this person, while admitting that he's caught the grey virus of apathy from e-books, has the decency to regret being infected:
Which brings me to my ultimate observation about the fallen status of books: Can you imagine throwing a book party for a friend who wrote an e-book? As attendees bought the e-book, what would the author do to personalize and commemorate the event? Sign their Kindles?
Anyway, back to Mr. Theaker's article:
Of course, I accept that some people will always prefer print books. Maybe they really couldn't live without the smell of book mould. Many seem to expect an imminent apocalypse, given how worried they are about not being able to recharge a Kindle every three weeks. Most haven't even seen a Kindle, but know for certain that it's just like reading on a computer screen. They shouldn't worry: there will always be publishers and booksellers to cater to their fetish for paper.
But it is a fetish. From the Penguin Concise English Dictionary, a couple of relevant definitions. Fetish: "an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion" – check! And fetishism? "The displacement of erotic interest and satisfaction to a fetish." Exactly: the object of a reader's interest should in theory be the text of a novel, not the paper it is printed on. Displacing the interest from the novel to the paper is fetishism.
This is where the contempt for books really shows through. To enjoy them is to be a fetishist. There's something a little bit puritanical about this. For 'fetishist' you could just as well say 'idolator'. We shall have no sensual pleasures and no graven images. The pure essence of the Word is all we need. Anyone found sniffing books will be thrashed with birch twigs.
I find this to be part of the rather disturbing tendency to denigrate enthusiasm. The same denigration is seen in the attitude that people have towards 'fans' (short for 'fanatic'). If someone likes something too much, their opinions about it are immediately discounted as those of a mere fanboy or fangirl. But this leaves us in a world where people take their pleasures at arm's length and wearing latex gloves, and preferably without actually enjoying them at all.
If you're not a fan of a books, if you're not a fetishist, then what are you actually doing reading books except killing time, because you have nothing better to do?
A printed book is a church with stained-glass windows, with stone carvings, iconography, incense; its worship involves both body and soul. There is nothing wrong with involving the body in worship, too.
There's much more to say on this, but I've just looked at the time. Let me press on.
The article next lists all the things that are wrong with print books. I'll go through, if not all, the most salient of these:
You have to choose between using a bookmark to keep your place, or folding back the book's corners.
Do you know, it has never occurred to me to be irritated at having to use a bookmark. In fact, bookmarks fill me with a surge of erotic joy. I certainly haven't found myself coming to the end of a chapter and thinking, damn, I'm going to have to lift that bookmark now, then shouting through to the kitchen, "Can you help me with this bookmark? Thanks. You take that end, and I'll take this end. Let's see if we can get this thing back between the pages."
The only way to search the text for a phrase is by re-reading the book.
Okay, I admit it. E-books have an advantage here.
You can't read them in the rain.
Are e-books waterproof? Perhaps we should have trial with deep-sea divers to find which stands up to best underwater reading – print or e-books.
Reading the book damages it.
This is an interesting one. What is the average lifespan of a hard-drive? A few years? Perhaps the thing that I find most dubious about e-books is that the books themselves will soon become as inaccessible as the information on floppy discs. (Remember those?) Will there be second hand bookshops in the future where you can find rare, antique e-books? My guess is that, for all that print books get wear and tear, they'll last much longer than e-books. Besides which, what is there to damage with an e-book, anyway? It's all essence and no body.
You can't change the size of the font when your eyes get tired, or when you get older and short sighted. If you need to read a print book in large print you have to hope someone publishes a large print edition.
Do you remember choose-your-own-adventure books? Great fun, but they haven't replaced books where the author has already made all the choices for you as to what happens. That's because there's some value in something being particular, in it being something rather than just any old thing. This applies to the physical appearance of a book as well as its text.
You need to buy – and build! – bookcases to store them on. They take up most of your house, if you let them. (And boy have I let them!)
Books do furnish a room, as someone once said. I don't suppose anyone will ever say, "A Kindle does furnish a room." Personally, I like looking at the spines of books on a shelf. There is such a thing as anticipation when it comes to books, of enjoying the sense of having a number of universes lined up before you, that you can pluck from their place with your hand. Personally speaking, clicking on a digital index doesn't give me the same feeling. That might just be me, of course.
And if you sort them by author, but then say want to see them sorted by publisher, date bought, date read, title or genre, it takes more than just a single click. They need to be re-sorted one by one, a process that could take days if you have as many printed books as I do.
I have never, ever sorted the books on my shelves by author, publisher, date bought, date read, title or genre.
Well, there is more to say, but I'm afraid I have other things to do.
I've written this not because I think my feelings are universal, but precisely because I know that the default setting for most people is to jump on the 'progress' bandwagon. In other words, I think books could do with a bit of defending.
Stephen Theaker writes:Nice rebuttal!It’s worth noting though that I’m not setting out an agenda in the article – it’s just that having realised I’d only read one of my paper books in the period since October 2008, I was interested in exploring the reasons why.So while you may not have trouble with bookmarks, I constantly lose them, especially when reading at night. You may not read books in the rain, but I do fairly often when waiting to collect the kids from school. And so on…
Stephen Theaker writes:I’m just excited that someone has been to my blog. 😉
Hello Stephen.Thanks for taking it in good sport.
PS. Was going to write more in the article, but had to rush. Therefore, I realise it’s not very balanced, if balance is what is called for, which it might not be.
I’ve just been looking for something else to rebut on your blog, but can’t find anything, I’m afraid. The e-book rebuttal, or rather, rebuttal of the obsolescence of print books, will have to do for now.
i have probably read more books than anyone alive now and i wouldn’t even consider kindle. that doesn’t make me a ‘book sniffer’. i read because i am a reader. i have always been a reader. i even read an enormous amount online. my present library consists of very many hundreds of books. they are not alphabetized but i know where every book is. i have left behind librarys of the same size three times in my life, regrettably, of course. over time i usually buy my favorite books again, or find them somewhere.finally, there is nothing more pleasurable than browsing my own bookshelves and finding what interests me at the moment.i live in a building of 60 apartments and every now and then someone dies here… the community living room has four book cases where the manager sometimes stocks them with the books left behind. only last week i found a paperback copy of “a tale of two cities”… i copped it and am reading it for the third time. now how could anything like that ever happen in a ‘kindle’ world?
gveranon writes:A couple of weeks ago I bought a Kindle out of sheer desperation. I live in a small apartment and own nearly 3,000 books, half of which are in a storage unit. I ran out of shelf space a long time ago, but I keep buying books and piling them anywhere I can. Obviously something has to change. In the future I hope to buy fewer physical books and extend my madness into the digital realm. Someday I hope to move to a (slightly) larger place, but I will still have a library space problem. . . . Anyway, the Kindle: It is an amazing device, really a miracle of engineering — amazing, too, how quick and easy Amazon has made it to buy and download ebooks. But I find it frustrating to actually read a book on the damn thing. The screen is considerably smaller that a typical book page; maybe I’ll get used to that, but it just feels wrong to me. And instead of being able to quickly flip through a book, glancing at passages here and there (which is how I often read nonfiction), you have to page through one screen at a time. Underlining or annotating passages is an awkward, time-consuming process. Etc. I could go on with my complaints. I feel like I’m reading with one hand tied behind my back and my thoughts distracted and slowed by an annoying intermediary. I want to reach through the screen and grab the “real” book. I’ve been reading Listen to This, by Alex Ross (an excellent book) and have had to resist the urge to buy a paper copy — then I would *really* enjoy reading it. Nevertheless, I plan to persist with ebooks because of my space problem. If space for books were not an issue, then I would remain a resolutely old-fashioned reader. I will still buy paper copies of particular favorites, of course.
unarex writes:I dunno…I could see the same argument being made against newspapers 15 years ago. “Imagine reading the morning news on a computer screen, and not while lounging in your chair over coffee…” I don’t really care as long as the work is out there. I suppose though, readers can be given the option of purchasing a print book if they really want one. I don’t like it when my books smell like the bottom of an old ship.
AD (book sniffer) writes:Doubt a Leiber, Our Lady of Darkness style “Scholars Mistress” could self-compose out of Kindles….. (although some would see that as a good thing I guess…)
Interesting to read your view on this topic. Will come back later.
Justin Isis writes:I am not against e-books but I think physical books should exist too. I feel like there is the urge to create a physical object, to turn the text into a physical thing which can then be exposed to time. The Kindle doesn’t get dirty, but books will end up being stained with alcohol, human fluids, dust, cigarette ashes etc. depending on where they’re left. You can tear out the blank pages at the back, write messages, underline passages, etc. I remember my copy of Ulysses was completely fucked by the time I was finished with it, it had so many annotations and pages torn out and things taped in and things I’d written in it and underlined. It looked like someone had literally raped the book. The Kindle also seems linear. Books are inherently nonlinear, since you always have access to any page at any time. You just can’t scroll through an e-text that quickly or access things the same way. It sounds strange to say but printed books are actually more technologically advanced than e-books in this sense. Also not that with books, regardless of where you’re reading, if you have it open you’re actually looking at TWO PAGES at once and not a single text column. I could explain this in more detail but I think people know what I mean.
Just to add my two pennies to this:I am definitely anti-Kindle. This particular e-reader mostly supports Amazon’s proprietary file format, meaning that you can’t download from any source other than Amazon essentially. Also, files are not kept in an on-board memory, they are kept on a book server that Amazon has constant access to. This means that Amazon can change or possibly lose your books for you. Please see this article.
Anonymous writes:Woodside Skulk writes:@Evans:I’m so glad you caught that connection! I was thinking “this sounds the same as what Evans was saying in response to one of Quentin’s recent posts!” as I was reading it. Totally agree with you, too, by the way.
Anonymous writes:Woodside Skulk writes:@Evans:I’m so glad you caught that connection! I was thinking “this sounds the same as what Evans was saying in response to one of Quentin’s recent posts!” as I was reading it. Totally agree with you, too, by the way.
Evans writes:Call me a filthy sensualist but I actually like many of my books as physical objects in themselves. Some of them I’m probably not likely to read again but their souvenirs of a the time you’ve spent with them and the moment you first read the words inscribed within. Also there is no question that an appropriate, or at least an appropriately resonant (I’m thinking of those Lovecraft covers), back drop increases a persons enjoyment of any art form. Plus you can play Borgesian tricks with the lay-outTo state that enjoying the feel or smell of a book is Irrational, or at least state it as a negative thing, doesn’t make sense since surely reading itself is just another form of aesthetic pleasure. Rationally why read in the first place? The best thing about Ebooks that I can think of are:1. The capacity to store massive amounts of archive text – I’m thinking particularly in terms of newspapers of public records – and allow interested parties to access them without having to go to specific institutes.2. It’s only going to be a matter of time before someone figures out how to manipulate the software and popular Ebooks become like music DVDs; downloadable for free all over the net. ”I find this to be part of the rather disturbing tendency to denigrate enthusiasm. The same denigration is seen in the attitude that people have towards ‘fans’ (short for ‘fanatic’). If someone likes something too much, their opinions about it are immediately discounted as those of a mere fanboy or fangirl. But this leaves us in a world where people take their pleasures at arm’s length and wearing latex gloves, and preferably without actually enjoying them at all.” I agree with this – can’t help but feel it goes along with the whole ”society not really liking you being happy just content” thing.
Crikey. More comments.One thing I didn’t address in the original article was the question of print books being wasteful. I hope to do that later. Basically, if e-books can reduce waste then I admit that as a considerable plus.Originally posted by anonymous:1. The capacity to store massive amounts of archive text – I’m thinking particularly in terms of newspapers of public records – and allow interested parties to access them without having to go to specific institutes.2. It’s only going to be a matter of time before someone figures out how to manipulate the software and popular Ebooks become like music DVDs; downloadable for free all over the net. I know this isn’t a popular view at all, but for me, the second is not an advantage but a strong disadvantage. I haven’t read this yet, but I might get round to it:http://www.starvingtheartist.com/More later…
unarex writes:I never rip, write in, dog ear or underline or highlight in any of my books. I just don’t like it. I use post its to mark passages and anyone I’ve ever passed an old book to can say I will sometimes forget they’re in there. Bodily fluids? I suppose there are plenty bad ones out there worthy of being toilet paper. I guess I’d rather wipe my ass with a bad book than a Kindle.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:i live in a building of 60 apartments and every now and then someone dies here… the community living room has four book cases where the manager sometimes stocks them with the books left behind. only last week i found a paperback copy of “a tale of two cities”… i copped it and am reading it for the third time. now how could anything like that ever happen in a ‘kindle’ world?I don’t get out much these days, but I always used to find bookshops magnetic. I still do, but must admit the magnetism has worn off somewhat, perhaps because bookshops now tend to stock only the safest titles possible. Anyway, apart from bookshops, other places where books accumulate are also fascinating, and especially the kind of common room library that you’re talking about which has a kind of organic and chance-driven ebb and flow to it.Originally posted by anonymous:I dunno…I could see the same argument being made against newspapers 15 years ago. “Imagine reading the morning news on a computer screen, and not while lounging in your chair over coffee…” I don’t really care as long as the work is out there. I suppose though, readers can be given the option of purchasing a print book if they really want one. I don’t like it when my books smell like the bottom of an old ship. I think if I had ever cared about newspapers, I’d still care about them now, and make those same arguments, but I never have, if I’m to be honest.I’d be very interested to know what my books smell like in, say, fifty years time. If I’m still around – I suppose I won’t be – then I’d like to line up a few copies of the same book to compare their smells and see what kind of journeys they’ve had since leaving me.Originally posted by anonymous:Doubt a Leiber, Our Lady of Darkness style “Scholars Mistress” could self-compose out of Kindles….. (although some would see that as a good thing I guess…)Will have to look this up. Sounds interesting.Originally posted by anonymous:A couple of weeks ago I bought a Kindle out of sheer desperation. I live in a small apartment and own nearly 3,000 books, half of which are in a storage unit. That’s quite a collection. Actually, the majority of my books are in storage, too, with others being scattered in caches hither and yon. I hope some day to be able to bring them all together.Originally posted by anonymous: I want to reach through the screen and grab the “real” book. I suppose that’s the essence of how I feel. Why would you want to interpose an unnecessary machine between you and the book?There might be occasions for such necessity – travelling and wanting to take plenty of books with you. But it seems like an expedient for such occasions, really.Originally posted by solid copper:Interesting to read your view on this topic. Will come back later. Please do.Originally posted by anonymous:It sounds strange to say but printed books are actually more technologically advanced than e-books in this sense. I think they actually are. Electronic formats for recording information, relying on specific technological infrastructures, date very quickly, as we see increasingly. I know this isn’t what you meant, but one way in which books are more advanced is that they don’t date like this, and you don’t have to rebuild your library repeatedly to accomodate new techonologies requiring new formats.Originally posted by anonymous:Call me a filthy sensualist You’re a filthy sensualist.Always happy to oblige.Originally posted by anonymous:ome of them I’m probably not likely to read again but their souvenirs of a the time you’ve spent with them and the moment you first read the words inscribed within.This is a good point. I can actually spend time holding (and sniffing, fondling, licking, etc.) a book and remember everything I loved about reading it, without actually re-reading it. Somehow the sensual impression of the book itself help to trigger the memories of the text. Needless to say, this is something you can only do with a printed book.Originally posted by JohnRenard:Also, files are not kept in an on-board memory, they are kept on a book server that Amazon has constant access to. This means that Amazon can change or possibly lose your books for you.Yes, I forgot to mention this.More later…
Anonymous writes:”I know this isn’t a popular view at all, but for me, the second is not an advantage but a strong disadvantage. I haven’t read this yet, but I might get round to it”The last comment was meant some what ironically. If anything I, in a rather churlish way, see that factor as a useful deterrent to over digitization of copyrighted text. If people want to run to idolish progessive technolisation they will have to except progressive technolisation’s downsides as well. There is something about having a little bound narrative, a self contained textual world, that Ebooks can never take away.
CB writes:Sorry, that should be:”Then they’ll go under as popular mainstream writers gravitate towards the popular mainstream publishers….”
Chris Barker writes:QC:Aren’t we reading this blog on an internet-linked computer screen? In the future every small press publisher will be famous for fifteen months. Then they’ll go under as popular mainstream writers gravitate towards the popular mainstream writers, while the obscure, lesser known and often poorly paid writers cut out the middle man and upload their work as ebooks for Kindlers. Look what’s happened with television and cinema. Demand has fragmented so supply has had to adjust. The same goes for music. I rarely buy CDs these days, I download albums from HMV etc. Less clutter, less chance of losing the music, no hassle in having to rip it onto my pc or MP3 player phone. Picture the scene: it is 2020. You are on holiday and suddenly you have a sudden desire to read Northanger Abbey; or you might be stuck in hospital, where a librarian pushing a trolley around of Colin Dexter and Barbara Cartland novels is your only reading outlet; or you might be at home disabled or ill, unable to get down to the library. With a Kindle you can *instantly* obtain a copy of Jane Austen’s novel, and even better, you can twiddle with the font size, so that it is comfortable to read.We are riding the crest of the last ever wave, Quentin. In the future everything will be electronic. The best books will become display case antiques; the worst, recycling fodder. Publish with this in mind. Produce a small run of attractive, well-made books for old-school connoisseurs, but get your authors out there onto the internet before someone else steals the work anyway and pirates it via a torrent. I have about 20 paperbacks in total. I wouldn’t much care if I didn’t. I have a couple of thousand rare & old collectable hardbacks – the majority antiques – and a small handful of exquisitely made modern books. But increasingly I view these as ‘stock’.I’d rather have a large plasma screen TV on my wall than a bookcase these days. And I have my heart set on a Kindle by way of a Christmas present because I am fed up with carting heavy books around all the time. Yrs slightly polemically but mostly sincerely,CB
Originally posted by anonymous:The last comment was meant some what ironically. If anything I, in a rather churlish way, see that factor as a useful deterrent to over digitization of copyrighted text. Sorry, I didn’t pick up on that. Originally posted by anonymous:Aren’t we reading this blog on an internet-linked computer screen? We are, and I am having to wear prescription sunglasses in order to do so. I’m not joking. I realise a Kindle doesn’t have the same glare. Still, I think the points I’ve already made stand, despite the fact that I have a computer here. It hasn’t stopped me reading books or wanting to read them.Originally posted by anonymous:In the future every small press publisher will be famous for fifteen months. Then they’ll go under as popular mainstream writers gravitate towards the popular mainstream writers, while the obscure, lesser known and often poorly paid writers cut out the middle man and upload their work as ebooks for Kindlers.My guess is – I’m basing this on some experience and evidence – that writers will still need publishers. Fortunately or unfortunately, people will decide to read based on some kind of central organising authority. They just don’t have the time to trawl through the entire universe of self-published internet material to find what is good and what isn’t. I think that’s still the case, and will continue to be the case. Therefore, there will be mainstream publishers, and, I hope, there will also be independent publishers. Originally posted by anonymous:We are riding the crest of the last ever wave, Quentin. In the future everything will be electronic.Maybe so. We shall see, I suppose. But I just don’t believe that everything is improved by electricity. It seems an inane idea to me. A book is a self-sufficient object. It doesn’t malfunction. It doesn’t run out of energy. I also don’t need an electronic pen, an electronic chair, an electronic tea cup, electronic glasses or an electronic scarf.I’ve wondered why this bothers me. If printed books do disappear then it is probably because it’s inevitable, and if they don’t, then they won’t, and it will be because people still want and need them.I suppose, for me personally, a world without printed books could mean a world where I end up as a vagrant drinking meths on a patch of waste ground. That could be what bothers me. Or maybe it’s something else, a sense that humans are determined to throw away anything of value and only grasp the next shiny object and the next.I know that books are only objects, too, and there is at least some kind of valid point in what I have called puritanism, that it’s the essence and not the trappings that matter, but as I’m sitting here trying to pinpoint precisely what bothers me, I have a sense that it’s to do with the idea of people throwing away the essence, too, in some way. “There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more.”The other article on e-books I linked to talked of the devaluing of books, and there was a sense that its author was, on account of the advent of e-books, now jaded with all kinds of books, both e and pre-e. I also associate e-books with this feeling people seem to have that books are worthless and over. This is where the essence is lost along with the object. In Chinese, the word for civilisation is written with the characters for “writing” and “light”. Civilisation is the light that grows from written language. If we don’t revere that language, and if language in – hopefully – its highest form (literature) is just something ripped and burned along with all other electronic information, then what is left, really?Not much.
unarex writes:”I also don’t need an electronic pen, an electronic chair, an electronic tea cup, electronic glasses or an electronic scarf.”No, but it would be pretty awesome if you did. 🙂
TC writes:I’m not against kindle, but I do like collecting books and I love the feeling of being surronded by a whole bunch of books be it a library or my own measly book shelf in my college dorm. Just can’t get that feeling with the kindle. Not to mention I actually like owning the book instead of data in a computer.
Justin Isis writes:Nocchi, A-Chan and Kashiyuka have conclusively demonstrated why everything is better with electricity:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpQwIcIoiY
Originally posted by anonymous:No, but it would be pretty awesome if you did. :-)Yeah, clearly I’m just weakening my own argument with these statements.Originally posted by anonymous:Not to mention I actually like owning the book instead of data in a computer. At the risk of being repetitive – exactly! As Mr. Renard pointed out, with a Kindle you don’t actually even own the book/data. It can disappear from your Kindle at any time for reasons that have nothing to do with you.Originally posted by anonymous:Nocchi, A-Chan and Kashiyuka have conclusively demonstrated why everything is better with electricity:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpQwIcIoiYPerfume notwithstanding, I think I’m going to have to stick by what I say. Though it might be worth me reiterating the point I struggled to make above, that one thing that concerns me is the correlation between the advent of e-books and people saying that books are ‘over’, or ‘devalued’ or whatever. This is all very depressing, and not at all like the shiny, dancy, Utopian atmosphere of Perfume’s Electroworld. I’m sure in Perfume’s Electroworld people don’t go around being such downers, and, whether by e-book (okay, presumably it would be some kind of e-book in E-World) or not, I imagine they’d have the ability to get wide-eyed and enthusiastic about the power of words, H.P. Lovecraft’s prose style, and so on.
Justin Isis writes:Maybe Nakata was influenced by Gravity’s Rainbow: “M-maybe there is a Machine to take us away, take us completely, suck us through the electrodes out of the skull ‘n’ into the Machine and live there forever with all the other souls it’s got stored there. It could decide who it would suck out, a-and when. Dope never gave you immortality. You hadda come back, every time, into a dying hunk of smelly meat! But We can live forever, in a clean, honest, purified, Electroworld–” etc.
On Monday, when I wrote this blog entry, I said I had things to do. Immediately after I posted the entry, I rushed into town to try and locate a cable for my computer, to buy some cheese and to do something else important that I’ve now forgotten… Oh yes, post a copy of my novel to someone.Anyway, while I was in town, I was magnetically drawn to one of the bookshops. I actually ended up buying this book:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Isms-Ologies-Difficult-Doctrines-Understand/dp/1847243509/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287565387&sr=1-2I saw it in the window display, reduced price, and eventually found it irresistible. It seems very likely to me that I would never have searched out this book. I bought it because of a chance physical sighting.I’ve been reading it and it’s full of all kinds of interesting information. This is from the end of the entry on Feminism:The Equal Rights Amendment, drafted in 1921, states that “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” It has yet to be ratified.I suppose there are a number of main points I wished to raise above, but one of them is simply the kind of floccinaucinihilipilification that seems to come with e-book technology, as if it’s a spearhead of disenchantment.
unarex writes:Was it electronic cheese that you bought? And where can I get an electronic scarf? Do they make electronic soap and if so, does that cause a problem while submerged in water?
unarex writes:Was it electronic cheese that you bought?
are you overwhelmed or just liripipionated? floccinaucinihilipilification.that’s an interesting word you have invented. so now you are the panjandrum of polysyllabic diction. keep it up man, just make sure you can pronounce it. 😆
Anonymous writes:”I have never, ever sorted the books on my shelves by author, publisher, date bought, date read, title or genre.”Call yourself a booksniffer? Pfff!
Originally posted by anonymous:Was it electronic cheese that you bought? Sadly, no, though now I know where to lay my money next time I’m at the racetrack. Electronic Cheese will win by a head, I’m sure.Originally posted by anonymous:And where can I get an electronic scarf? Do they make electronic soap and if so, does that cause a problem while submerged in water? Well, judging by your average shampoo advert, most shampoo must have nanabots in it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sz_uqCO2Iq8Originally posted by I_ArtMan:that’s an interesting word you have inventedDespite being monstrously sesquipedalian, floccinaucinihilipilification is actually in the dictionary!Originally posted by anonymous:Call yourself a booksniffer? Pfff!Well, this is probably an appropriate occasion for me to say “touche”, but in my defence I could plead that I’m just not a very anal booksniffer.So to speak.
Evans writes:Perversely (because why not compound my aforementioned crime), Chris’ post has reminded me of another point in favour of paper and ink text. Books are more reusable than Ebooks which are bound to one person, or, at least, one person’s Ebook Reader. With a book you can pass it on to a different person if you get bored with it or think they would enjoy it. Strangely I haven’t seen that point raised so much in all online discussions of this.
Originally posted by anonymous:Books are more reusable than Ebooks which are bound to one person, or, at least, one person’s Ebook Reader. With a book you can pass it on to a different person if you get bored with it or think they would enjoy it. Strangely I haven’t seen that point raised so much in all online discussions of this.I hadn’t actually thought of this, but yes, it does rather put bookcrossing out of the question.For this reason, I now intend to take up bookcrossing.Other things you can’t do with an e-book:1) Throw it at the president.True, you could throw a Kindle, but if you’re an author trying to get attention for your book, and you throw a Kindle at the political head of your country, they won’t know which books in particular you’re trying to draw attention to.2) Bibliomancy.You can’t open a page at random and tell your fortune or ‘throw a textual die’ to make some momentous decision about your life with an e-book.3) Conversation piece”Hey, look at this new book I’m reading! It’s really great.””It’s a Kindle.””Yeah, but the book’s in there somewhere.””Yeah, tell me the title and I might look it up later.”No doubt there will be more to follow…
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Despite being monstrously sesquipedalian, floccinaucinihilipilification is actually in the dictionary!damn. my american heritage dictionery has let me down again :cry:o.k. i have it now. four latin words meaning a paucity of significance. so the act of judging something to be of little worth. why i myself have suffered from floccinaucinihilipilificating effete snobs in the art world.
Originally posted by I_ArtMan:o.k. i have it now. four latin words meaning a paucity of significance. so the act of judging something to be of little worthThat’s the one. Apparently a facetious coinage, but a useful meaning. Certainly in this case.Originally posted by serenard:What surprises me is that no one has mentioned the sticky subject of piracy yet.It has been touched upon, actually. Evans brought it up, and I said that to me this was another strong disadvantage of e-books.Originally posted by serenard:We are no longer bound by the physical: books have become invisible spirits, waiting until you click them awake.Unfotunately, while we still have to eat, we’re still bound by the physical. At the moment, people seem to consider that only these ethereal musicians, writers and so on don’t have to eat. But they do.
What surprises me is that no one has mentioned the sticky subject of piracy yet.Books have become the new mp3. With enough hunting, you can find almost any mainstream or subterranean author on a torrent site. If there’s a paid .epub / pdf version of the book available for download then anyone with enough know-how can upload the book into a network of shared users.In one afternoon you can increase your collection by 10,000 books. Free information and entertainment is fast becoming the standard operating procedure.However, despite the awesome smelliness that is a printed book, I do have to defend epub, mp3, avi, and even iso.We are no longer bound by the physical: books have become invisible spirits, waiting until you click them awake. Same with movies and music, we no longer need a disc to play them. To use the cliche, information and entertainment is at our fingertips and a click away. It’s amazing when you think about it! Personally, I can’t wait until we get to the point where we can just download the data directly into our brain!Or, better yet, a way to upload our consciousness into the internet. Either way, it’s a brave new world. Now, I’m off to dream about electric sheep.
I feel like the buffalo in this clip:Oh well, just let it be quick.
I’ll be impressed with human technological advancement when:A device is created that can conjure food, physical materials and energy from nothing, thus eliminating the need for the slavery known as ‘work’, making the the whole triumphalist capitalist ‘survival of the fittest’ loathsomeness obsolete in an instant. This will leave us free to pursue our imaginative projects to their greatest extent. I’m not impressed by technologies that, rather than lifting the yoke of capitalist slavery, make it heavier and tighter, technologies that demand that you must keep up, conform, pay for all the latest and most fashionable versions of lobotomy, crave things and then cast them aside as soon as they are gained because they are simultaneously ‘must-have’ and disposable, etcetera. Kindle is just another kind of imperialism, another attempt to destroy the capacity for humans to conceive of things that are not ‘must-have’ and disposable at the same time.No one is telling people they’ll be left behind if they don’t read books, and that’s telling. The freedom to read them or not, to breathe, to spend time in one’s own private thoughts. Kindle is the opposite to this – another part of the race, the competition, the constant snapping at ankles and trying to get ahead.
Originally posted by quentinscrisp:Oh well, just let it be quick.thanks a lot. that was too damn gruesome. now i hate dragons; sneaky poisonous patient and ugly too.
It is quite an impressive clip. Apparently the camera crew who had to follow the buffalo around for weeks while it was dying became quite disturbed by the whole thing.
i can imagine… a high price for zoology.
Marco writes:A house without books is empty. It has nothing. No character. No soul. No spirit.I don’t do fiction. I read the Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, of Ireland, of the Classical World, of Women in the Classical World, of Christianity. I read Arab Nationalism in the 20th Century by Adeed Dawisha. I read Terroni by Pino Aprile, Niente e cosi sia and Intervista con la Storia by Oriana Fallaci. I read the Force of Destiny by Christopher Duggan … but I read.I spent a couple of days with a friend in a small town in Southern Spain not long ago. We went to what was, in effect, a car boot sale for ex-pat Brits and a few Spaniards. I was a massive – and I mean massive – affair and there were loads of bookstalls.Much of the fare on offer was plebeian (I admit to being an inveterate snob) but hidden in the midst of all the plebeian dross were gems, dulled and worn by an infinite number or readers but gems nonetheless.Nightmare scenario? The ending of the 1960 film The Time Machine. A world in which there are no books.
Originally posted by anonymous:A house without books is empty. It has nothing. No character. No soul. No spirit.Naturally, I feel the same way. Originally posted by anonymous: I spent a couple of days with a friend in a small town in Southern Spain not long ago. We went to what was, in effect, a car boot sale for ex-pat Brits and a few Spaniards. I was a massive – and I mean massive – affair and there were loads of bookstalls. Much of the fare on offer was plebeian (I admit to being an inveterate snob) but hidden in the midst of all the plebeian dross were gems, dulled and worn by an infinite number or readers but gems nonetheless.I can envisage that Anglo-Saxon countries might think that books are over when other parts of the world don’t, in the way that ‘food’ is also considered to be over in Britain, for instance, but is still very much indulged in by people in other countries.