Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for July 22, 2015

Goat, we are all reading this on some kind of device.

Rock on, Goat!

Almost reminds me of that Fine Brothers episode on YouTube where the brothers made teenagers react to physical book encyclopedias.

I’m with Goat here.

What, another division among humans in the Pastis Universe? By now we have cyclists vs. motorists, vegans vs. vegetarians vs. omnivores, zebras vs. crocs, rat vs. everybody else…

No, not a technophobe, a realist. E-books have their place, but they will never beat a good old-fashioned book. And they aren’t as environmentally friendly as some may believe.

Way to go Goat!!! Nothing smells better than a new book!

Go, Goat! Bash that pretentious technophile!BOOKS (real, printed-on-paper ones) ARE GOOD.

most goats would see books as edible..a library a buffet..

Once again Stephan has given all of us some food for thought. Thank-You Stephan :-}

I have an enormous library of physical books. So far, I’ve downloaded close to 500 ebooks into my NOOK. I’m familiar with the pleasures of the traditional book, but for convenience and simplicity, nothing beats an eReader full of books. A word to look up? Rest your finger on it and there’s the definition. Need to check a fact, research an author’s claim, get more detailed information? Click over to the appropriate internet resource, find what you need, go right back to the book. Search that stack of cookbooks for an obscure recipe? Oh, please! Just search on “marmite pasta” or whatever. Where among all my shelves is that copy of “Riddley Walker”? Click! Never mind, here’s an ecopy. You say the bookstore is out of the title, the library doesn’t have it, and you need it now? Click. Where in this Bible does Jesus call Herod a fox? Click. Where did I stop reading? The ebook automatically marks itself. Read in any lighting without a lamp? Check. Want it read aloud? Check. Three travel guides to Paris and limited room in the luggage? Want a book that’s been out of print for decades? Or one that never saw physical print, ever? (I’ve got some “complete short stories” collections of authors who only saw print in magazines until ebooks came along.) Yeah, I’m going on and on… but I’ve really just scratched the surface. In the last six years I read better, faster, wider, more, and in greater depth than I did in my first 55 years of reading. P.S., I work in a bookstore.

Did the “nook” salesman leave yet?

I use both paper books and a kindle. At home, I enjoy a book, however when I travel, nothing beats carrying hundreds of books in a device not much larger than a smartphone!

i like a good old-fashioned scroll myself.

I wonder if there was a similar dispute centuries ago, when paper was replacing scrolls!

I have a friend that constantly updates me on how much they have read… 34%… now 38… now 62…

@jimmjonzz—Well said!

BTW, the Bible verse you mentioned is Luke 13:32!

Goat has obviously read and been influenced by Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”. So have I.

There’s a place for ebooks and ebook readers. Displacing and replacing traditional books is not that place.

Actually, teenagers read more physical books – and prefer them – than middle-ages adults.

I’d rather read a “real book” at any given moment, but my Kindle is a real convenience, particularly for travel.

For me the issues here is people who don’t bring their own “stuff”. Ebook guy should have thought to bring his own charger, not try to scrounge one off some accommodating stranger. And since he forgot, then I guess he can get by without it. He’s lucky he didn’t ask Rat. Rat would probably have a charger, but I suspect the reaction would have been a lot more hostile.

And don’t even get me started on people who never have their own ♨︎#!!⚡︎⚡︎✩ pens.

It’s kind of ironic to see people bashing ebooks while reading a comic strip online.

Still, I’m with Goat more than against him. I don’t like to buy books, paper or e-. I like to read them. I view a book as an investment that I like to read more than once. Where I am, the number of free e-books available is rather limited; though our library tries its very best. If one wants popular titles that can be read an forgotten, the e-book is the thing. If on the other hand, one wants something that one can go back to time and again, I’d go with paper.

Two things that made no sense in the 70s: “Well, I think I will go charge my book and my cigarette.”

I’m of both minds on books v. e-readers. I PREFER a physical book and have hundreds of them, most in the attic because we don’t have the space downstairs. Nothing like being able to literally turn a page, I guess.

On the other hand, my wife and I are taking an Amtrak trip across six states starting today and I’m taking my e-reader because it’s so much more convenient and (thanks to Gutenberg.org) I’ve got over 1,200 free books to choose from.

Around 1960, when I started buying books, paperbacks were 40 and 50 cents, hardbacks $1.25 and up. Now a paperback costs more than minimum wage, and hardbacks are a day’s wages if you’re a part-time worker. I think I have bought 10 or 12 books this century. I go to used book sales on dollar a bag day, and usually find enough to keep me going from sale to sale. I got an ipad Mini so I could process credit cards with Paypal at my tiny business. I suppose there’s a book reader app for it, but, I can’t be doing anything that is going to cost much money. I can get library books, but I like to keep the books I read, as old friends. When I was a kid, my aunt had a big old house with a walk-up attic, filled with tables filled with books. Original editions of the Oz books, for example. One of my favorite movie scenes is the hidden attic library in Fahrenheit 451. I always wanted to recreate that in my retirement house, but it seems I am doomed to a crappy doublewide.Physical books are not a casual thing with me. I have to have them.

That guy could be like an iPhone owner and carry a charger around with him all the time looking for a place to get the battery juiced up. Poor, sad iPhone owners…

Our friend Paris is usually very calm and rational, but this issue really got his goat!

LOL LOL

Goat reminds me of Samuel T. Cogley, Attorney at Law from Star Trek.

COGLEY: What’s the matter? Don’t you like books?KIRK: Oh, I like them fine, but a computer takes less space.COGLEY: A computer, huh? I got one of these in my office. Contains all the precedents. The synthesis of all the great legal decisions written throughout time. I never use it.KIRK: Why not? COGLEY: I’ve got my own system. Books, young man, books. Thousands of them. If time wasn’t so important, I’d show you something. My library. Thousands of books.KIRK: And what would be the point?COGLEY: This is where the law is. Not in that homogenised, pasteurised, synthesiser. Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, Learn the intent of the men who wrote them, from Moses to the tribunal of Alpha 3? Books.

I’ve got plenty of real books, and a kindle with some on it and a few on my phone for when I am out and about and in a line waiting (short stories on the phone are pretty handy). I won’t risk the kindle out of the house too easy to damage. Sometimes when I know I’m going to wait I’ll carry the extra weight of real book.

… tree killer (Goat)

Modern warfare. heh heh

I sense most of us are smart enough to understand there is a place for both items (books and e-readers) with individuals having preferences of one over the other. It seems to me most comments are very tongue-in-cheek. keep it up.

While I enjoy the convenience of an ereader (I have had the Kobo, Kindle and now I have a tablet and smartphone with ereading apps), I still buy physical books…mostly used books though.

The worst thing about e-readers is that you can’t give your ebooks to someone else, even after you die, so that your library is much more temporary than a real book collection.

At least he said “anything else.” There is hope!

I can “Play Books” on my Smartphone but I don’t think I’ll ever use it.

I have loads of books in my bedroom already.

xxx

a friend working at barnes and noble refused to stand at the front and push the “nook”. they finally forced him to just a few days before his resignation was effective. someone came up wanting to buy 1 & my friend just looked at hi and said “why” the guy looked back at him and said “you’re right” and walked away

Yeah, but when you’re fleeing the Zombie hordes, you’ll be hard-pressed to carry your library with you. A solar charger for my iPad and I’m in business!

Dinosaur and proud of it.

“Bookstore killer”? I thought Amazon was doing just fine!

:-P

I use and enjoy both. Not everything has to be either/or.

jimmjonzz, your description has tempted me to but one, despite being a booklover of the traditional kind

sorry buy got typed as but

Sounds to me like you read Terry Brook’s “Voyage of the Jerle Shannara” trilogy.

Ironic that this is posted on technology such as this.

BOOKS RULE!!!!