Having said all that, I should think that some segments of the reading public would welcome these electronic readers. I imagine they would appeal to some sci-fi and perhaps fantasy readers. That might be a good thing because it would clear the shelves of that stuff, and make room for proper literature. But I find it impossible to imagine that a woman would prefer to curl up with pleasure to read Pride and Prejudice on a Kindle rather than in a well-bound, good quality book.
Just last week I saw a beautiful edition of Voltaire's Candide, which was the first complete book I ever read in French, and will probably buy it just because of the beauty of the edition, and a great part of the pleasure of reading it again will come from the physical qualities of the book itself. My late neighbour, John Beckett, had an edition of Ulysses which James Joyce himself had decorated and adorned either for John personally or for his cousin Sam. If and when texts only exist as sequences of bits, this kind of thing will never happen. Last year I read a number of classics which I would not otherwise have read, simply because they were available in such beautiful editions. The point is, it's not just me. A very large percentage of the reading population enjoys books for their own sake as well as their content. That percentage is a large enough segment of the market to keep printed books going for a very long time. Has anyone any idea how the name Kindle came about? Am I being paranoid in seeing a relation between the words Kindle and kindling, which is a use that tyrants so often find for books!? Bob > > > > Everything Bob Walkden said about the pleasures of books is > and will > > continue to be true. It's also beside the point: It won't stop the > > advancement of electronic books any more than the pleasures of film > > stopped digital cameras. > > > > It's a false analogy. People have a very different > relationship with books > to what they had with film. The 2 things that will keep books > alive are > their tactile quality, the sentiment we attach to them as > individuals, and > bookshops. The 3 things that will keep books alive are ..., > and libraries. > > Bookshops have survived the onslaught of Amazon because book > people love > bookshops. All Amazon has done it given us a way to buy more > books. I now > probably buy more books from bricks and mortar than I ever > did before, even > though I also buy truckloads of them from Amazon. I can't walk past a > bookshop without going in, and the fact that they are crowded > and there are > long lines at the tills tell me that other people are the > same. Wandering > along a row of shelving flicking through likely-looking books among > like-minded people, then sitting in a cafe curled up with your latest > purchase is a much more enjoyable experience than sitting in > front of a > screen on your own downloading a file. > > There is a whole range of experience with books that an awful > lot of people > enjoy that you simply don't get with digital versions. It's > not just new > books either. Used bookshops, booksellers along the Thames, > the Seine, the > Rhone; Charing Cross Road - all these things are part of the culture > associated with books, learning and reading, which people love. > > There was nothing remotely like this, or an a similar scale, > with film, > which for most people was nothing more than a utilitarian necessity. > > Bob > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly > above and follow the directions. > > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
