it has e-begun

[jazzfish]

Over vacation I read Charles Stross's six- three-volume Merchant Princes series. They're good stuff. The first one's a normal SF worldwalker book, and the next two are much more contemporary thrillers that happen to include a worldwalking component. Also, the twin central messages are 'Economic development is tricky' and 'Stop romanticising the past.'

They are also, as Charlie noted, big fat books. I mostly didn't notice this, because ereaders are a thing of lightweight beauty.

Over the weekend I got a desire to reread Umberto Eco's big thick secret-history Foucault's Pendulum. My copy is a giant hardback, because it looks nice on my shelf and because when I was carrying a large backpack around campus one more big book didn't really make a difference.

Now? I am genuinely *irritated* that I can't just open it on the iPad. Instead I have to deal with a physical volume that causes me physical strain to hold in one hand, and that doesn't fit in my coat pocket. I am almost (almost) considering plopping down more money for an ebook edition.

I suppose this is how 'and then i replaced my library with ebooks' starts.

---

Two quotes about Foucault's Pendulum:

1) "Dan Brown is a character in my book." --Umberto Eco, on being repeatedly asked if he'd read The Da Vinci Code
2) "Nobody gets Foucault's Pendulum except for literary critics and role-players." --James Palmer

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

That is how "and then I replaced all my books with e-books" started for me. That, and the realization that I could take 800 books with me for a three-week trip to Turkey, instead of having to pick and choose 3.

Also, I did get Foucault's Pendulum back when I was not yet a role-player, and was definitely not a literary critic, being, like, 14. I'm sure I'll get more out of it today, though.

[jazzfish]

This convenience for travel is a dangerous thing. I'm fine with resisting the siren song of the iBookstore, right up until I start thinking "so i'm gonna be gone for a week, what do i want to read, bother i'd have to carry a physical copy of that and that and those..."

I have definitely gotten more out of it on this reread than I did a decade ago, and that was light-years beyond what I got in high school. It is ... impressively layered. I begin to suspect that Mr Palmer may have missed one or two aspects of it himself.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I attempted to read FP when I was in my early teens, and made decent headway, though any time I put it down, I'd have to reread back half a dozen pages to get back into the thread again; when I re-attempted a few years ago, I couldn't make it fifty pages.