a book in the hand...

[jazzfish]

21 days for Dreamwidth, #17:
How many people on your reading list do you know IRL?

About half? *counts* Twenty-eight of forty-nine, plus two I've met only once (hi, blaisepascal and coraa!). More like three-fifths, then.

---

Book Reader vs Book Owner:

There is a growing distinction between the book reader and the book owner. The book reader just wants the experience of reading the book, and that person is a natural digital consumer: Instead of a disposable mass market book, they buy a digital book. The book owner wants to give, share and shelve books.

Meh. I'm a "book owner," I guess. Have been since I bought the bright blue/green/red paperbacks of Lord of the Rings in elementary school, since I first grasped the idea that I could have books that I could read whenever I wanted to. Which I did, repeatedly, until I wore out a lot of my older paperbacks. In high school I discovered the local used bookstore, and started trading in the books I wasn't rereading as often. Later I found sources for affordable hardbacks, first through the SFBC and then from Green Valley Book Fair, and I started building up a substantial Library. These days, I know I've really moved in to a new place when the books come out of the boxes.

But I own books because I want to read them. If a book doesn't pass the Good Enough To Reread test, into the Go-Away pile with it. I love books because I love reading, and reading is a joy that's mostly independent of the physical medium. If it's holding together and not of so poor quality that it's distracting, I don't much care whether the book is a cheap beat-up paperback or a beautiful limited edition from Subterranean.

My main objection to ebooks, after technical complaints like "lack of a decent e-reader" and "lack of a consistent e-format," is the same as my objection to electronic music: there's no physical medium, no way to recover from a data crash. These days this is at least partially irrational: between backups and the ability to re-download a book or song from whichever online store, I could most likely rebuild my library if my hard drive were to explode. The fear's still there, though.

There's also the question of availability. I could see myself switching over to ebooks... but a lot of what I want to read is older and not (currently, or ever in some cases) available in a decent e-format. So if and when I go digital I'll still be hauling a bunch of physical books around, because that's my option.

I'm okay with this. I do appreciate the way books furnish a room, and I like having a physical tactile association with what I read. (There's a phrase I've been meaning to look up for months now, that I know is in the second half of a book, near the top of a left-hand page. And I imagine that when I next read Tolkien I'll get all discombobulated, because I no longer have those falling-apart primary-colored paperbacks, and the words will all be in the wrong places.)

I just don't think there's nearly so great a divide between "book owner" and "book reader" as the New Yorker blogger, or the Penguin Putnam executive, seem to see. In ten years, if and when print books actually become the luxury items they're supposedly threatening to, maybe. But at that point, "book" will mean "ebook," and we'll have a separate word for dead-tree editions, like with "album" and "vinyl."

Comments

[desfido]

In addition to all the problems you've mentioned, there's another limitation: I can read a book more rapidly than I can read from an ereader. The ereaders I've seen cause a notable slowdown in my reading rate due to how slow flipping pages is and how they choose to do it. Granted, I read pretty damn fast (in one of the two courses I received a non "A" grade in at NVCC, "College Success Skills", IIRC, I clocked over 1k words a minute when they tested our reading speed), but, still, I suspect there are a fair number of other folks who encounter such problems.

Even now, I tend to buy CDs over MP3, partially due to the recovery thing. & since I've had to deal with that a few times over the years, I'm okay w/ that as a reason.

And I definitely think your last para is spot on.

[shanaqui]

I used to have the same problem (re: slowdown because of page turns): I don't have a noticeable slowdown with my Kindle, and I got used to it in the end with my Sony reader -- with the latter, it basically got to the stage where I would hit the 'next page' button immediately, because by the time the screen changed I'd have read it all! I don't think it impacts my speed now: I shall have to do a comparison and find out...

[jazzfish]

*snrk* Excellent. I'd not thought of that; I think the ereaders I'd seen blanked the page when I hit the button, and then took a half-second or so to redraw it. I may be misremembering.

[shanaqui]

I think that's how the Sony works, too, but they think about blanking the page long enough that I'm already done by the time they do. *grin*

[jazzfish]

Oh, jeez, yeah. When Borders was at 50% off I tried a couple of eInk ereaders, and I just got frustrated. I know rationally it's not that much longer than flipping a page, but ... nngh.

Stanza on the iPhone isn't so bad. There the only problem is that the pages are so small and hold so little text. The only eReader I have any real interest in is the iPad.

(I am ironically amused by you acing almost everything except How To Succeed In College.)

[shanaqui]

I don't think there's that great a divide, either. I'm both of those things: I own an ereader -- technically two, but my girlfriend has the older one -- and use it, but I also amass collections of books. My Arthurian literature collection is really getting to be something to see -- okay, it's still only a shelf full, but some of them are pretty rare. ♥ And all of the ones I kept are really good/really interesting. On the other hand, even with Arthurian literature, I'm happy to get rid of the book (usually by giving it to a charity shop!) if I didn't enjoy it.

I'll be dragging a suitcase full of books back to my home in Cardiff after this trip to my parents', even though I have my Kindle. It's not as if the two modes of consumption are mutually exclusive.

/ramble

[jazzfish]

The Arthurian lit collection makes me rather happy.

It's not as if the two modes of consumption are mutually exclusive.

True, but also frustrating, because if I were to start seriously buying ebooks I could see myself in two years wandering around the house going "WHERE IS THAT I KNOW I HAVE IT oh right it's on the ereader" (or alternately WHY DO I HAVE TO CARRY THIS GIANT BOOK AROUND TECHNOLOGY YOU HAVE FAILED ME).

I fully expect to adapt to ebooks eventually... but also to be towards the back of the pack when I do so. It's not my great attachment to physical books that's keeping me from going electronic (though I do like them): it's just a long-standing distaste for upgrading my technology. ("Obsolete (adj): stable, reliable, complete. Support trailing-edge technology!")

(and feel free to ramble at any time! s'what the comments are for!)

[shanaqui]

*grin* There's a row of source texts and a row of modern fiction. Makes me happy too.

Ahaha, this is why I catalogue my books quite strictly. I use GoodReads.com, and I've ended up with several 'to-read' shelves: normal 'to-read', which means books at my parents' house; 'to-read-in-cardiff', which means books at my house; 'kindle-owned' which means books I bought on Kindle; 'to-read-ebooks' which means I didn't buy them on Kindle so they're somewhere on my computer... Otherwise, I'd get very confused.

[firecat]

I am both a book reader and a book owner. I want to read many more books than I want to own in paper. Most of the time I take those books out of the library, but sometimes I buy them in electronic format. I'm not going to make any effort to amass a collection of e-books until they standardize on a format though.

[jazzfish]

I want to read many more books than I want to own in paper.

The biggest thing keeping me from this stance right now is time. That is, I desperately want to read many many more books than I want to own, but I have too many other things that I put my time towards instead, and at this point (thanks to the glory of used bookstores) my "want to own that" list is larger than my "will conceivably have the opportunity to read that."

I'm not going to make any effort to amass a collection of e-books until they standardize on a format though.

SERIOUSLY. I'd even settle for a couple of different standards, a la music's MP3/Ogg/AAC/whatever, if they were at least all supported by the major ereading devices.

[rbandrews]

Like MobiPocket and ePub? The problem is the DRM, for me. Every time I buy a book I have to go through the hassle of stripping the DRM from it. It's the same fail that the music industry had, then the film industry, then the games industry: your DRM doesn't hurt the pirates at all, so you're only giving people a reason to pirate.

I am happy with ePub, I just wish they'd standardize on one DRM scheme so that I can crack everything with the same program.

[jazzfish]

Mobi, ePub, PDB, whatever it is that Kindle uses, the hell on earth that is PDF, DJVU (?) ...

Totally agree about the stupidity and failure of DRM, though.

[rbandrews]

Pretty much everyone supports Mobi and ePub now. PDB is a holdover from PalmPilot readers, it's ancient... PDF just plain sucks but everything can more or less read it.

You can theoretically convert from anything to anything with Calibre, but in practice it's a little fiddly. The best overall experience I've had is either just buying stuff from Amazon and using Kindle software (breaking the DRM as desired), or buying stuff from Pragmatic Press and reading it as PDF on the iPad.

Oddly, this problem is totally solved for comics, and always has been: cbr and cbz are the same format, and there's a good reader program for everything (including the iPad, which is how I'm going through Fables now. I justify my larceny by having just ordered all of Absolute Sandman, so Vertigo got paid, believe me).

[jazzfish]

It turns out I'm a "book owner" in the sense that I care a lot about the end experience of reading. If I've got an ebook, I want to just transfer it to the reader, click on it, and /go/ and not have to worry with converting it, or making sure it'll work properly with my reader, or whatever.

I'm not too surprised that it's a solved problem for comics: there are two major and a small handful of minor comics publishers. I /am/ pleased, though. The iPad seems like the natural delivery system for the comic book.

[rbandrews]

I should clarify; it's a solved problem for pirated comics; I'm not sure what the official iPad apps use. The CBR reader is great though.

Unfortunately unless you're cool with just only reading what the Kindle sells, you're sort of stuck. I've been playing with this a lot in the last year and I agree, it's not really there yet. Amazon has a really great system full of crap DRM (won't let me copy/paste code samples out of a book? Seriously?) so you have to go through the hassle of removing that at least.

Funny, since they're also the ones who have the great DRM-free music store.

[lurkingcat]

I'm another one who is both a book owner and a book reader. I'm about to take the plunge with an e-reader. I love the feel of books but unless I work out how to build a Tardis there is always going to be a limited amount of space in the house to store them.

I used to borrow from the local library a lot but cuts in the service and my slightly ridiculous commuting times mean that my local library is rarely open when I'm around.

For me the appeal of an e-reader is mostly portability (more than one book available when I'm spending about 3 hours a day on public transport and might otherwise run out of things to read OMG!Panic!).

The things that make me wary are not so much data loss (I've learned my lesson about backing things up) but the Lack of an industry standard format and DRM issues. You're not so much buying a book as buying a license to read it - theoretically that license can be withdrawn.

But it's shiny new tech and I'm a person who likes shiny new tech so I'm going to give it a try and see how it works out :)

[jazzfish]

I like shiny new tech when I know how to integrate it pretty seamlessly into my life. So, more like "tech that's had some of the rougher edges rubbed off and isn't quite so shiny and new anymore." :)

You're not so much buying a book as buying a license to read it - theoretically that license can be withdrawn.

nngh yes, that too. That was always sort of an issue, like with the borderline-illegal first US paperback edition of Return of the King, but it's not like people were beating down doors to take books away. And, what happens if a publisher loses the ebook rights for book X? I wouldn't think it would get pulled from all devices but there's the ability, which tends to lead to it being used.

(I'm not usually this paranoid, I swear.)

[lurkingcat]

Heh. I work in an IT support environment where I'm dealing with software that is still in beta on a fairly regular basis. My tolerance for "Yeah, that's a problem but I'm sure we can work around it" is dangerously high. This can be a problem when purchasing shiny new tech for the home so I've actually bought a Kindle on the recommendation of a non-technical but avid reader friend. Because if she's happy with the file format converston process and general usability and has not yet threatened to throw it out of a window then I know that I'm not being overly optimistic about its capabilities. Well, that and it was the most comfortable one for me to hold :)

Paranoia is a reasonable reaction in the face of DRM and the whole licensing thing. I'm planning to set some pricing limits on what I buy in ebook format because while I'm willing to pay for a bit of portability I don't like the idea of having files yanked off my reading device due to a change of publisher or court ruling or the like. Also it's not like I can sell the file on if I'm short of cash, bequeath it to my nieces, or donate it to a charity drive.

[jazzfish]

heh. My job is writing manuals for software that's not finished yet, and I've gone the complete other way: I have much less tolerance in my home life for anything that acts like a beta, or that requires a lot of end-user configuring and fiddling to make it work.

(At least, much less tolerance for getting started with something that acts like that. If it breaks down after I've made the initial investment, I'll grumpily spend hours trying to make it work again. The notion of "sunk costs" hasn't really sunk in yet.)

And, yeah. Maybe the best thing about physical books (and CDs) is the secondary market. It really expanded my horizons when I was a teenager with next to no spare cash. I'd miss that a lot if and when ebooks take over.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I have read many, many books from libraries or online that I will probably never own, and given away plenty of books. But I also love owning books, even books that I might not ever find time to read, because it gives me the feeling that I have built up a distinctive world. I can sit in my library and look at the spines of my books, and it feels like home.

[jazzfish]

Sometimes when I get stressed and/or tired I go and sit in the corner that's defined by bookcases and flip through some of the books I can reach from there.

I really like your library-with-built-in-reading-couch!

[blaisepascal]

Hi back at ya...

"album" is a twice-dead term, it's original meaning killed off by vinyl. It originally referred to the books holding multiple 78RPM records, each with a single 3 minute song on them (per side). When 33RPM LP records came out, they could hold the same amount of of music as a whole album, so the name transferred and stuck, even though an LP was no longer a physical album.

One of by good friends is a book owner, taking great pleasure in the physical presence of books. I currently have more books in my house than I have shelf-space for, and more bookcases than I have wall-space for. My book purchasing, while not ending, has fallen drastically because of this issue. This, plus the portability issue (have you ever packed more books than clothes for a trip? I have) has me examining the Kindle and Nook.

[jazzfish]

I did not know that about albums. I figured it referred to the gatefold packaging that sort of resembled a photo album. Neat!

I have yet to pack more books than clothes for a trip, but mostly because "trips" growing up were all to Arkansas where there were a lot of books waiting for me, and then in college they were all either to the DC area and thus short, or to Origins and thus crazy-busy.

The wall-space thing is likely to become an issue with the next place we find to live (after the one we're moving to this month). I am not looing forward to that, in the slightest.

[mikailborg.livejournal.com]

Given that I am currently living in a small bedroom, and much of my library is in a storage unit or *sob* given away, e-books are filling a vital niche for me right now. In the future when I have properly library space, I hope to indulge in hardcopies once again.

[jazzfish]

geep. My sympathies.

I've been lucky enough to always have space available to have the books near me, even if most of them have had to be in boxes.

ebooks

[bitbug.livejournal.com]

I've been using a Kindle now for 3 months and this is what I have found to be true about my reading experiences on it.

I read more often and faster on the Kindle than I do from a book
- since each "page" is a smaller amount of text than is displayed on say a mass market or trade sized paperback, I pick the thing up and read more often since there are more delineated "breaks" that I can stop at. I read "faster" because the print is bigger and my old eyes can take them in faster.

I read more varied genres. There is an amazing amount of free materials on the internet. Old books that are no longer under copyright can usually be found on the project gutenburg site. Many book companies of sections on their websites for free downloaded content. Baen books in particular posts early books in a series to get you to buy the newer ones.

Format differences? Who cares. A little program called Calibre can reformat your ebook to fit any platform you want to put it on.

The Kindle, and I imagine all e-ink readers, look just like print on paper. No irritating back light, is visible in sunlight and does not give me headaches from hours of reading like a LCD or backlit device would.

I still love my physical books, but I truly believe that I have branched out more as a reader due to the ebook, and I certainly get through far more books with it.

Re: ebooks

[jazzfish]

I read more often and faster on the Kindle than I do from a book

Huh. I'd not considered that as a benefit. The 'faster,' I mean, the 'more often' makes a lot of sense.
Interesting.