I haven’t had a book with a software glitch, or that had the batteries run low.
However, my experience with e-book readers and mp3 players (for audio books) has been otherwise.
Bill Hinds said (yesterday): “Yeah, I find it hard to believe Kindle and its ilk will ever replace books. Not as long as bookbinding is still an art form. I don’t see photographs replacing paintings, for instance.”
I agree. Books have a satisfying object-ness that’s separate from the text they contain. My fear, though, is that limited-edition, Fine Art Bookmaking (embossed leather bindings, hand-stitching, high-quality paper) will be the only bookmaking that survives.
The art of painting didn’t disappear when photography burst on the scene, but it had to shift into areas where photographs couldn’t follow. It used to be that the “best” painter was the one who could most faithfully represent what the eye sees. A cheap snapshot can now capture “realism” far better than any painter ever could (even a so-called photorealist), so we got Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, abstracts, and so on… All these are wonderful developments, of course, but the last 150 years or so have removed painting (and illustration) from the foreground of the public eye. Painting has been isolated even as it’s been elevated. If you want a keepsake portrait of your sweetheart or your child, you don’t hire a painter, you hire a photographer.
The books that are going to go away first aren’t the classics like Moby Dick or Great Expectations; there’ll be a market for fine editions of those. They’ll just be priced into obscurity.
What’s going to disappear is, say, the next Dan Brown book, or Danielle Steele, or even Phillip Roth. When mass-distribution by download becomes cheaper and more reliable than mass-printing (and that day will come), the bookstores will close just like the music stores have.
After all, there are still people who release music on vinyl, but you won’t find it at Wal-Mart…
To me the book is about the content, the words. I far prefer to read those words on a Kindle (or one of the other electronic readers available). Why? It’s lightweight, I can carry thousands of books with me in my purse. On the Kindle you have an on board dictionary that facilitates easy look up of word definitions. The search function allows me to find a particular book easily.
There are many thousands of free and legal books available. If you go to the Kindle bookstore and search on -domain and then order the from low to high there are 70ish free non-public domain books available.
If you read bestsellers then you can quickly recoup the cost of the Kindle due to Amazon’s generous $9.99 charge for bestsellers. Personally, there are few bestsellers I read and those that I do are readily available for free from the library.
The best thing about electronic readers is that you don’t have to schlep to the bookstore and search through their inventory for something to read. I was reading on Palms for years before the Kindle and for fiction find that digital books are the way to go.
I would definitely pay for a very nicely bound edition of some of my favorite books so I’d have that on my shelf but I enjoy not having boxes upon boxes of books in my home. For mass produced one time reads, the digital version is the way to go.
John Reiher Premium Member almost 15 years ago
Give me a book any old day! At least with a book, the publisher can’t make the words go away when they loose the rights to print the book.
BakaBard almost 15 years ago
Amen to that!
bald almost 15 years ago
and encourage your children to enhance their hand eye co ordination by going out and playing sports instead of holding one of those game controllers
POPPA1956 almost 15 years ago
I haven’t had a book with a software glitch, or that had the batteries run low. However, my experience with e-book readers and mp3 players (for audio books) has been otherwise.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 15 years ago
Bill Hinds said (yesterday): “Yeah, I find it hard to believe Kindle and its ilk will ever replace books. Not as long as bookbinding is still an art form. I don’t see photographs replacing paintings, for instance.”
I agree. Books have a satisfying object-ness that’s separate from the text they contain. My fear, though, is that limited-edition, Fine Art Bookmaking (embossed leather bindings, hand-stitching, high-quality paper) will be the only bookmaking that survives.
The art of painting didn’t disappear when photography burst on the scene, but it had to shift into areas where photographs couldn’t follow. It used to be that the “best” painter was the one who could most faithfully represent what the eye sees. A cheap snapshot can now capture “realism” far better than any painter ever could (even a so-called photorealist), so we got Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, abstracts, and so on… All these are wonderful developments, of course, but the last 150 years or so have removed painting (and illustration) from the foreground of the public eye. Painting has been isolated even as it’s been elevated. If you want a keepsake portrait of your sweetheart or your child, you don’t hire a painter, you hire a photographer.
The books that are going to go away first aren’t the classics like Moby Dick or Great Expectations; there’ll be a market for fine editions of those. They’ll just be priced into obscurity.
What’s going to disappear is, say, the next Dan Brown book, or Danielle Steele, or even Phillip Roth. When mass-distribution by download becomes cheaper and more reliable than mass-printing (and that day will come), the bookstores will close just like the music stores have.
After all, there are still people who release music on vinyl, but you won’t find it at Wal-Mart…
tallmomof2 almost 15 years ago
To me the book is about the content, the words. I far prefer to read those words on a Kindle (or one of the other electronic readers available). Why? It’s lightweight, I can carry thousands of books with me in my purse. On the Kindle you have an on board dictionary that facilitates easy look up of word definitions. The search function allows me to find a particular book easily.
There are many thousands of free and legal books available. If you go to the Kindle bookstore and search on -domain and then order the from low to high there are 70ish free non-public domain books available.
If you read bestsellers then you can quickly recoup the cost of the Kindle due to Amazon’s generous $9.99 charge for bestsellers. Personally, there are few bestsellers I read and those that I do are readily available for free from the library.
The best thing about electronic readers is that you don’t have to schlep to the bookstore and search through their inventory for something to read. I was reading on Palms for years before the Kindle and for fiction find that digital books are the way to go.
I would definitely pay for a very nicely bound edition of some of my favorite books so I’d have that on my shelf but I enjoy not having boxes upon boxes of books in my home. For mass produced one time reads, the digital version is the way to go.
mrprongs almost 15 years ago
But this is like buying her thousands of books