This piece in The New Yorker on modern reading gave me the rare experience of nodding in recognition as I shook my head in disagreement. Jay Kang, the writer, and a reviewer, talks of how he was lured into electronic reading by the convenience. I get that. I still get a lot of review copies turning up in my PO Box, and sadly, most of them end up in the trash. Nobody asked me if I wanted to read the next heartbreaking work of staggering genius (Answer, no), and I don’t have room on my shelves anymore.
My only regret is I have many plastic tubs holding the many books I accumulated in the time be fore e-books, which even if I knew which book held the specific quote I sought I am unlikely to find it. Contrast this to the ease of searching the 1000 books stored on my book app.
The best thing about ebooks is the search function.
“Urgell strode into the throne room and brandished his war axe”.
Hang on, who the bloody hell is Urgell again? Oh, there he is. He’s the dwarf clan leader we met in the Ravine of Ruing a full 72 pages ago.
This is very helpful. Particularly for the older gentleman.
I note in the article that Jay Kang has not only moved totally to electronic reading, he does all his reading on his phone. This is despite purchasing electronic readers including a Kindle. I think that’s going too far over the precipice.
I moved to ebooks partially for practical reasons, in that I went through a period of moving house every 12 months and lugging my book collection around became unsustainable, so I culled it into shelf worthy and ebook worthy authors. I've transitioned to ebooks also as an availability thing; having thousands of books available on my phone when i'm out and about means i'm not lugging books of various sizes and weights around with me, and I no longer have to deal with the existential angst of trying to work out the likelihood of finishing a book while I'm out and the calculus of bringing a second book just in case.
That said I'm reading some analogue books for the first time in ages, and the tactile sensation of having actual pages to turn, and having to keep track of my bookmark does make the reading experience very different from reading on a tablet or phone. I'm not sure if it's better, but it's certainly different, and the book hits differently, especially when I fall asleep reading - it's nice having pages settle gently over my face rather than getting smacked in the forehead by a tablet when I drift off.
i used to be a bit snobbish about audiobooks until we hit long car trips with the kids. Then we stumbled on excellent kid books to listen to - the how to train your dragon ones were a mainstay for long trips (David Tennant is bloody brilliant with them, so much so that the kids were initially disappointed with what dreamworks did to them) and its hard to toss those cd's because they have so many memories associated with them. Then working on my bit of land i migrated to audiobooks myself and havent bought a physical hold in your hand book in years. And now i'm so into them i have this working theory that it hits that pre-civilisation button of sitting around the fire listening to stories and passing knowledge on verbally that i think its the best way to go. Although headphones tend to isolate more than reading a book, rather than bring everyone in communally, which is probably more than half of the point of storytelling/knowledge transfer. I infrequently sit down and read the written word these days.
Similar to an analogy between 50 over and Test Cricket. “Kindles are for your girlfriend. Books are for your wife”.
My only regret is I have many plastic tubs holding the many books I accumulated in the time be fore e-books, which even if I knew which book held the specific quote I sought I am unlikely to find it. Contrast this to the ease of searching the 1000 books stored on my book app.
The best thing about ebooks is the search function.
“Urgell strode into the throne room and brandished his war axe”.
Hang on, who the bloody hell is Urgell again? Oh, there he is. He’s the dwarf clan leader we met in the Ravine of Ruing a full 72 pages ago.
This is very helpful. Particularly for the older gentleman.
I note in the article that Jay Kang has not only moved totally to electronic reading, he does all his reading on his phone. This is despite purchasing electronic readers including a Kindle. I think that’s going too far over the precipice.
I moved to ebooks partially for practical reasons, in that I went through a period of moving house every 12 months and lugging my book collection around became unsustainable, so I culled it into shelf worthy and ebook worthy authors. I've transitioned to ebooks also as an availability thing; having thousands of books available on my phone when i'm out and about means i'm not lugging books of various sizes and weights around with me, and I no longer have to deal with the existential angst of trying to work out the likelihood of finishing a book while I'm out and the calculus of bringing a second book just in case.
That said I'm reading some analogue books for the first time in ages, and the tactile sensation of having actual pages to turn, and having to keep track of my bookmark does make the reading experience very different from reading on a tablet or phone. I'm not sure if it's better, but it's certainly different, and the book hits differently, especially when I fall asleep reading - it's nice having pages settle gently over my face rather than getting smacked in the forehead by a tablet when I drift off.
i used to be a bit snobbish about audiobooks until we hit long car trips with the kids. Then we stumbled on excellent kid books to listen to - the how to train your dragon ones were a mainstay for long trips (David Tennant is bloody brilliant with them, so much so that the kids were initially disappointed with what dreamworks did to them) and its hard to toss those cd's because they have so many memories associated with them. Then working on my bit of land i migrated to audiobooks myself and havent bought a physical hold in your hand book in years. And now i'm so into them i have this working theory that it hits that pre-civilisation button of sitting around the fire listening to stories and passing knowledge on verbally that i think its the best way to go. Although headphones tend to isolate more than reading a book, rather than bring everyone in communally, which is probably more than half of the point of storytelling/knowledge transfer. I infrequently sit down and read the written word these days.