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.

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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

[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.