Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 25, 2016

Goat, do you have own shares of Barnes & Noble?

Rock on, Paris Goat!

Don’t really care too much about bookstores, but agree with Paris otherwise. But no need for such strong language.

You tell him, Goat!

By “our last remaining bookstore”, Goat means the last one in the country.

I’m with goat. I prefer an actual book, that doesn’t need batteries or suffer from glare.

B&N, Powell’s (in Portland, Oregon), it sure is hard to come across good non-electronic books these days

Silly Bob. e-readers are not for books, they’re for GoComics.

Neighbour Bob needs a mat filter for his e-reader. Personally I love books but living in a small place cannot fit any more in without impinging on my living area and I cannot get rid of a book I like.

I’m shocked! I never saw Paris use such language before!(I agree with his sentiment, however.)

Don’t blame the hardware. Blame the people who love reading books but are not buying them.

Hard to blame them though. Anyone who has sold or given away books because they had too many knows how fast they can take up space. These days, “space” is getting smaller and more expensive.

While I Sympathise with the viewpoint – I must say I do prefer the eReader in its many variations. I can buy a book and read it on many different devices – I can store 100s of books/magazines on one device – I get the chance to purchase mini books that authors would not normally print, for 99c or sometimes free – sorry but this appears to be the way of the future for reading – I mean how are we reading/viewing the gocomics website???

Goat may have been hanging around with Rat for too long.

I don’t think we can blame Goat for his choice of words;I’m afraid Steph will have to answer for that.

It would be effing sad for bookstore owner. Period.But the rest of the world would gladly advance toward the XXII century in a world where paper back is becoming as archaïc as engraved stones.Did Goat also wept for stones engravers ?

Stephan needs to get out more. For 15 years, Kindles have been just as readable as paper in bright sunlight. Plus a Heinz 57 other advantages. Goat is a Luddite of the saddest kind; he used to be the intelligent one!

I started reading ebooks back in the very late 90s. They’ve come a long ways since the. Real e-readers can be used in the bright sun with no issues. If it’s just a tablet, then there’s a problem. I still have my books from back then, even though the format is now defunct. I just converted it. I read my books on various items including my PC, tablet, phone, and e-reader. I can stuff a book on my phone and read anywhere, because I always have it with me.

I live in Maine where paper mills are closing left and right. One just closed in my town not long ago. Life goes on, though. People lost their jobs, but they moved on. Why can’t everyone else just move on, too?

…and newspapers may go out of business because of go comics, did goat ever think of that?

My E-Reader works pretty well in the sun, but I’d much rather read indoors anyway, and the ability to carry hundreds of books around with me is not negligible. And although I do still buy real books, and would rather have any given book in that format at any given moment, I buy most of those online too, including used ones.

I prefer reading a real book as opposed to on a Kindle…sure, it’s probably cheaper to buy books on a Kindle, but it’s not the same as reading a real book…

Glorious rant, Goat!And you have clearly divided the readers here, the electronic device lovers screaming “Luddite” at those who prefer paper books, the paper book supporters clinging bitterly to Tradition.

Count me among the latter. I love real bookstores. It’s sad that I see them more often in airports than on city streets….

“…and may all your e-screens be white”!!

Save The Trees! Read an e-book today!!!

Don’t use a tablet to read, get an ebook reader like the Kindle. It looks exactly like a paper page. I’m sorry about bookstores but sometimes the business model change and you have to adapt. It happened before and it will keep happening for ever. I don’t see the mechanical calculator manufacturers crying about it.

never seen goat so agitated

Don’t give up, Goat. I have seen the future. In the 23rd and 24th century, both Captain Kirk and Captain Picard still read real books.

Ironic considering I’m reading an online comic on my laptop far away in the southern hemisphere.

What I’d like to find is a good used book store that won’t go out of business in a month.

I fought the ebook thing for a long time. Then my husband got me one for Valentines’ Day. I was hooked. However, I still keep paper books in the truck for emergency reading.

And, I agree with Kaffekup – in the area I used to live in, the used books stores were always going out of business. It drove me nuts.

Where we live now, the only store is about 20 miles away.

I love to read, but an average paperback costs what minimum wage is, and a hardback can be a day’s wages for a part-time worker. I go to library used book sales on dollar a bag day.

Goat is living in the past. He should go handcrank his motor.

Nothing better than breaking the binding on a softcover book, folding over the cover and digging in. “Gently used”, never!

Sounds like Evilstepqueen is my opposite and the sort of person I’d never lend a book to. If you can tell a book’s been read then you’ve been too rough with it.

I love my local bookstore. They resell lots of used books and many new ones, but the best part is just chatting up the people who work there. Being there is like being part of a book club where you can discuss authors and books both new and old, or just hang out.

I prefer real books, too (agreed with Templo S.U.D. about Powell’s), and resisted getting a Kindle until a few years ago, when I got the least-expensive version for $79. Still literally turn pages the vast majority of the time but e-readers have a purpose. Going to Sacramento this week and will take Kindle (and 1,200 books) with me.BTW, a great source for free ebooks is Gutenberg.org. Over 50K titles available and where I got 99% of my Kindle library. Mostly copyright-expired material over a century old, but authors like Twain, Dickens, Bierce and Conan-Doyle hold up well.

Something about the smell of ink and paper that enhances the experience of reading a “real” book.*[Scene: wife and I reading in bed]:Wife: Mmmmm. So good.Me: Huh?[Wife hands me her open book.]Wife: Take a hit off this.Me: Mmmmm.[True story!]

Libraries, people, libraries!!!

There is a contractor who’s in my place of business fairly often. He saw me reading a Kindle at lunch one day, and immediately held forth on how I was hurting the jobs of book manufacturing employees. I replied that I had hundreds of books at home but did NOT have room for any more. That I bought books electronically now: that the writer was getting paid. That whoever sold the e-books was making money. I called him a Luddite and invited him to look that up.

And yeah I prefer paper books when I am not swamped in them, unable to add any more to my collection for fear of collapsing the floor upstairs!

I love my Kindle Paperwhite. I have no glare problems with it but reading on other electronic devices can be challenging.

“Introducing the new Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge device, trade named B.O.O.K.

BOOK is a revolutionary breakthrough in technology; no wires, no electric circuits, no batteries, nothing to be connected or switched on. It’s so easy to use, even a child can operate it. Compact and portable, it can be used anywhere — even sitting in an armchair by the fire — yet it is powerful enough to hold as much information as a CD-ROM disc…"More

I read a book for the content, not for the method of delivery.

Though, as I get older I find the weight of an ereader much more comfortable to hold. Plus being able to long-press a word to bring up its definition is rather awesome. Scaling the font to a larger size for my aging eyes is beyond convenient.

I’ve 3 Kindles, including a Fire HD, but my Paperwhite is my favorite. It’s so easy to read in any kind of light.

Goat’s wrong. With fewer bookstores, the ones that remain are doing better. Same as video stores. Local store was struggling badly until Blockbuster et. al. went belly-up. Now they’re doing just fine.Also, books will be back. Just like vinyl.

Many of you extol used book stores… and that’s an area that eBooks totally fail at. Where/how can you buy a used still-in-copyright eBook?

For those bemoaning the lack of used bookstores in your town, visit the nearest Goodwill. Some will have good selections, some very poor, but at least it’s a start.

E-books are convenient, no doubt about it, but they depend on electricity to work. Know what is a contradiction? A collection of SHTF type survivalist e-books. If you get them at a legit seller, they cannot be loaned or given away, or be selled at a discount.Don´t know how are public libraries doing now, but last time heard, publishers were not fond on copy machines there. They only tolerate them because they are an institution. If they do like the music industry, more likely they would want a royalty for their use in libraries.

I had that view, then I moved with 8 bookcases + boxes of books that overflowed the bookcases! love my kindle! no glare outside, lightweight and can fit in my bag with no probelm!

From personal experience, it is entirely possible to enjoy both e-readers and paper books. I’ve even allowed the two to come into contact, and noticed no collapse in reality or explosion; they’re not matter and antimatter, and the universe can accommodate both. (And, around here at least, big-box store pressure and mismanagement seem more to blame than e-readers for bookstore failure.)

Perhaps I wasn’t particularly clear on ’tree farms" . Wood product corporations such as Weyerhaeuser, definitely have tree farms that qualify as “wooded areas”. I did not mean to imply things like Christmas tree farms. (although they can have a selective habitat for wildlife).

Technology advances hasten the end of older “tech” all the time. It’s up to the bookstore owner to evolve or die- that’s the sad reality of life.

Is glare really a problem for Kindles and the like? I thought the whole point of “e-ink” was that it was like reading actual pages.

Kindle I had never really ‘got’ me so while I had it my reading diet was a mixture – and I really did prefer the hard copy versions. Been without a working Kindle now for eighteen months and will continue to be fine as long as my hardback and paperback books don’t learn how to lock themselves into some sort of boot loop like the electronic orgasm-gizmo did….

I read the hoots of the techno-enthusiasts with something of a cynical smile, secure in the knowledge that their descendants are unlikely to enjoy leafing through shoe boxes stuffed with old photos seeing as since the advent of the wonderful digital cameras almost none of the pictures get printed. Digital photos are wonderful until the medium changes, or a restore fails because you discover your back up is corrupt (for the rare individuals who do actually back up all their holiday snaps) or some low life pinches the laptop with the last copies of the Afghan photos on etc etc. Not sure what the e-books equivalent is, but I do know that I often read (hard copy) books I have owned for half a century in among the more recent ones and suspect that will not be the case or even an option for those eager ‘ban the hard copy’ enthusiasts.

Before it went into boot loop heck, my kindle was used as much as a particularly cumbersome MP3 player as it was an e-reader.

Still, be a miserable world if we all liked things exactly the same. Sort of like the Isle of Wight…. Chacun à son gout.

Speaking as an author where my works (on legal topics) are available in both print and electronics, the way it looks from here is that the cost savings from digitization is another way for the publishers to keep more of the profits from the author. I am paid a percentage from the sale of my books, but in the electronic version I get only a certain small amount per visit, so it is more profitable for the publisher, much less for me, that a work is available electronically. For my own reading, I buy electronic versions of fiction books, but for nonfiction, I prefer paper books with margins and bibliographies.

yah, Goat, you can have your “book” if that’s what rocks your world. I can carry around the entire Library of Congress in my pocket. (I just don’t have time to read it all.)

What about Snuffles the Cat? He’s not named Cat you know. And then there’s Pig’s girlfriend Pigita, though her name could be argued as being a female form of Pig. But the same can’t be said for his sister Farina. Oh and there’s the non-anthromorphic duck who broke Guard Duck’s heart, her name was Maura. The Eata Eata Zeeba frat is on one side of Zebra’s house, Larry and his family on another, and then there’s the home of the lions, we know the males are Max and Zach. Oh, let’s not forget Patty Possum who thought she was a widow until the call announcing her husband was playing possum. John and Jennifer Seal were terrorized by the killer whale. Harriet Beaver was married to Petey Possum. Chuckie the Sheep, Doris the Swordfish, Andy the Dog, Jimmy Crab, Bob the Antelope. Pig’s Sea Annemone Enemy was originally a nameless male that Rat supposedly killed but accidentally split into two females named Annette O’Meade and her sister Ann when they reappered in the strip. Rat turned the bomb Annette and Ann tried to kill Pig with into a meatloaf he gifted to a porcupine named Alphonse who gave it to Chuckie the Sheep, who gave it Zebra, who gave it to the Killer Whale, marking the Killer Whale’s death. Stromoski the Undateable Frog got in trouble with the Secret Service for tounging former First Lady Barbara Bush’s ear, then Gloria Steinem stomped him to a pulp for doing the same thing to her. Zebra’s niece is named Joy. Sweet Fanny was Pig’s stalker sheep. Wee Bear and Dinkie Duckling’s names are descriptive of their size, but they are names. At least one Lemming is given a name, Fred.

It’s actually quite common for non-human characters in the strip to have names, not just something particular to Goat, the Crocs, or the penguins.

Sad as it is, I have to agree with Goat. Borders folded (one of my faves) and I have seen quite a few local places in several cities in he Midwest and East cut back their stock dramatically or just shut down.

Goat is a main character, that’s a bit more than regular as regular suggests appearing on a regular basis as a supporting character while a main character is more of a featured player. Of the Crocs, Larry, Patty, and Junior are really more main characters, especially Larry, while most of the crocs of the frat are a little more in a supporting role even though their considered main characters. Of the ones I listed many were regulars to the strip for at least a year as they were featured in several different story arcs. Pigita and Snuffles are far more regular regulars. Most had speaking roles. And your post I responded to stated that only Goat, the Crocs, and the Penguins were the only nonhuman characters with names, not the only nonhuman regulars with names.

You can go paper and have one book or go e-reader and have them all.

You go, Goat!They’ll get my books when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers.As Erasmus said, “When I come into a little money, I buy books. If there’s any left, I buy food and clothes.”

you’re ALL ignoring the elephant in the room,that is MOST complicit in the death of bookstores-Amazon…

Thanks Snarky. I’ve been following Pearls for some time, but because it’s not in my local paper, I miss it from time to time. That obviously was one of my “missed” times.

@jenifer I remember when Amazon’s entire business was nothing but paper books. Complicit, or keeping up with the times?

Sorry, but the reader is a lifesaver for me. I can carry all my purchased books and magazines with me on vacation, I can blow up the font for easier reading especially since my eyes don’t adjust as well with glasses than before, and in the end purchase more books because I can read easier. B&N would not have my business otherwise. Nor the authors who wrote the books I bought.

Ahh, goat go bleep!

I just try to stand or sit in the shade or at least put my back to the sun so I cast a shadow over my device. Works a treat! Or you can do your reading indoors.