a book in the hand...
May. 11th, 2011 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfish21 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:
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."
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."
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 03:40 am (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 04:46 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 04:57 pm (UTC)Totally agree about the stupidity and failure of DRM, though.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 05:07 pm (UTC)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).
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 08:00 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 08:04 pm (UTC)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.