Amazon Kindle & other eReaders

[Liam]

I volunteer to memorize Alice in Wonderland and Portnoy's Complaint.

Methinks Janet is accusing me of having fallen into a rabbithole and emerging as the Mad Hatter, . OK, OK, so I've pushed the envelope a bit too far...

I can't wait to see what kind of distortions my brain would commit with that combination.

Uh-huh. My brain is already filled with all sorts of paranoid distortions as it is... However, I'd probably volunteer to memorize The Tempest.

 

[beelzebubbles]

I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you,
Nor can imagination form a shape,
Besides yourself, to like of...more's the pity.

 

[Bjorn]

We don't have a whole lot of discussion of Publishing's Digital Future And Other Buzzwords here, so much of the satire of this piece may be lost, but I like it.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Future of Books.

 

[Eric]

A little satire never does any harm. I note quite a serious discussion in the provincial Swedish daily UNT about the difference between "läsplattor" and "surfplattor". It's all good, harmless fun, but has no one noticed that maybe the content of what people write is more important than the technological fix that is used to sell it to readers?

 

[miobrien]

A little satire never does any harm. I note quite a serious discussion in the provincial Swedish daily UNT about the difference between "läsplattor" and "surfplattor". It's all good, harmless fun, but has no one noticed that maybe the content of what people write is more important than the technological fix that is used to sell it to readers?

Content is, of course, the most important aspect of books. But for bibliophiles - definitely for myself - books are more than content, and that's why I'm skeptic of e-books and e-readers. In fact, I used to download books a decade ago off of Kazaa. But even then I noticed something was missing. Personally, I have a penchant for hardcovers: dusk jacket, the sturdy feel of the binding, etc. I rarely buy them new though, used all the way - abebooks.com. I received a Kindle as a gift, and I use it every now and then. I feel strange purchasing a digital book for $13. I'll never lose it, which is great, but it seems expensive for something immaterial.

 

[Bjorn]

has no one noticed that maybe the content of what people write is more important than the technological fix that is used to sell it to readers?

I would assume they have; that's what the literature section is for.

it seems expensive for something immaterial.

That's exactly what I said about mp3 music in 1998. "It'll never catch on. People like CDs." Now Apple is the biggest music retailer in the world. I love books too, but there's something to be said for accessibility... Good thing we can have both. (And for those convinced that the best thing about books is the smell of them, there's always Karl Lagerfeld's Paper Passion Perfume.

 

[Eric]

To be specific for Björn, who, of course, reads Swedish, the discussion in the Upsala Nya Tidning daily about these forms of reading pointed out that maybe devices that can handle a variety of tasks are more likely to sell than ones that can only store and handle a number of books for reading only. The article was written by the head of the arts page Lisa Irenius.

The point is an interesting one. If I had a device to carry around with me on the commuter train, I would value access to online newspapers and other news sites. If I am reading on the train, it is unlikely that I would be doing serious research or comparing texts, something I would do at home. So I would perhaps have one paperback in my bag to read, rather than the bewildering choice of 3,500 on a device that needs periodically charging up with electricity. That is what I'm driving at when I say the content is more important than the technology. I fear that companies are wooing young people and weaning them onto devices without too much thought as to what they are going to use them for, as long as they buy them and increase the profits of the company making the device.

 

[TrixRabbi]

Reviving an old thread here (last comment 2011) but was curious to learn if anyone has changed their feelings on ereaders over the past decade.

I searched for a topic on this as I just got a new Kobo Libra 2 yesterday and enjoy it quite a bit. I had an old Nook pushing 10 years old that had an LED screen (ugh) and was slowing down considerably so I would only use it on occasion. I can understand the physical intimacy of a book though to be honest I don't know that it's always necessary -- are we talking lavish editions and experimental books which make the physical page a part of the artpiece or just standard paperbacks of books without major attention to formatting? I generally won't read anything like poetry as an ebook, in large part because I'm nervous about formatting errors ruining the effect.

Generally though I do like to switch off and ultimately it comes down to convenience. It depends how you get your ebooks but for me it's much cheaper than buying books, especially more niche literary authors who the library doesn't always have and I can't afford to be buying en masse constantly. But it's also nice to read a physical book just as a screen break if nothing else.

Anyway, I'm curious, these things have been around for a long time now -- they've neither completely overtaken the physical book market nor have they faded away, it's clear they're here to stay and publishing will maintain an equilibrium between the two for a long time to come. So has anyone made the leap? Do you still have strong preferences one way or the other, or are you like me where you switch off depending on availability/mood/convenience?

 

[Andrew]

I don't own a e-reader, although I probably should -- I have 1,961 books here and that count is probably missing a few, but either way I am just short of 2,000 and will doubtless hit that number sometime in the next few months. Not that I didn't have a lot before, but I've acquired over 600 since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, using books and literature as a means of coping with lockdowns and telling myself that I was merely spending money on books that I would have spent on drinks and food if I were out with friends (which was true, up to a point). So I blame/thank Covid-19 for expanding my library .

I have nothing against e-readers, and may yet get one due to space limitations. However, I obviously prefer being in possession of a physical book, being able to see it on a shelf and either reflect on the reading experience or, if I haven't read it yet, remember how I acquired it. I also have a memory association with physical books, i.e. I can usually recall when and where I was when reading a specific title -- at home on the couch, lying in bed, on my balcony with a beer, on an airplane, in a park, at the library, on a beach in Mexico, in a hospital waiting room, on the bus, etc. -- and that recollection of the experience, holding the book in my hands, helps me remember the text and my feelings toward it. I'm not sure if this would be the same or not with an e-reader....I haven't read enough on a screen to know. The only things I can recall reading on a screen are an Icelandic short story that wasn't available in paperback, and A Room With a View by E.M. Forster, which I read on my laptop while at home and in a hardcover copy when I was out, on my lunch break in a coffee shop. That hybrid approach worked OK from a reading standpoint (once I found my place in the text each time I switched), but as an e-reading experiment it was a failure as logically I should have done it the other way around .

Anyway I tend to agree that e-books, and also audiobooks, aren't going to disappear anytime soon but thankfully neither are physical books. I believe having options and more ways of accessing a text can only be a good thing. Hopefully it remains the case, but who knows what the future holds.

 

[Leseratte]

I have always been a great lover of books of paper. But some years ago I got an insect problem, I haven't solved yet. So today I read almost only ebooks. They don't get dusty, they are easier to import and I enjoy the idea of carrying a lot of books around in my pocket.
My ereader is this tablet.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Half hard copy and half electronic (just as my reading is half fiction and half non-fiction). As I wrote in another thread:

“I add ebooks all the time, free and paid: About half my reading is electronic these days. There is some advantage to ordering a Kindle ebook on Amazon and having it in seconds - I can’t deny it.

But I love hard copies, and many books can only be had that way.”

I use my iPad as my e-reader. It’s my only device, period - I gave up laptops years ago, and I only have a “stupid” phone.

One aspect of my e-reading that I have mentioned here frequently is my Scribd subscription. For $8.99 / month USD, I have access to SO MUCH that way.

My pet peeve is audiobooks. Wouldn’t go there unless a vision problem necessitated it.

 

[TrixRabbi]

Yeah I dunno why but audiobooks just don't feel right. It's like, I could do them but I haven't read them. So I tend to go for podcasts instead.

The point about a physical attachment to where you read a book is a good one, but I do tend to think back on the story itself. Like, I still get books from the library too, so not owning the physical copy doesn't necessarily change my relationship to the book itself.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

I think of audiobooks as PERFORMANCES, and I don’t want to substitute someone else’s interpretation of the text for my own.

 

[TrixRabbi]

I know I'm absorbing the same info but I'm processing it in a different way. Yeah I can still discuss the book after, but I just haven't done the work to read it.

 

[shipeichong]

I used to hate ebooks but not anymore. The thought of holding many books at once appeal to me.