I love what you and Marnie, in particular , wrote - I'm leaving all
that below instead of clipping because my
way for storing things is my 'sent" mail folder ... and I want to keep
this handy...
in other words... ditto ditto ditto... I just wish I had more books with
larger type :-)
ann
Bob W wrote:
I don't happen to agree with you. A paperback book is about
as portable as
anything and less prone to accident.
You can throw it down, bend the pages, leave it spread open
to where you
stopped, stuff it in anything, toss it across the room to a
friend, take it on a
camping trip and not worry about batteries and/or
recharging, and as long as
you don't drop it in the water while reading when taking a
bath, it can last
a long, long time.
Sometimes progress isn't progress, and one can't really beat
a book for
readability and durability. (Yes, hardback too, and they are
still around.)
People have been predicting the demise of the book for about
20-30 years,
but books are selling (well, were before the recession)
better than ever.
Marnie :-)
I agree. There are more pleasures in reading than just reading. The
physicality of the book is important. The smell of a new book, the
progressive degradation of the spine as you read it. The ability to scribble
on it. Books, as the saying goes, furnish a room. Babies can pick books up
and read them upside down, and suck them without electrocuting themselves.
Pages rustle and twist and turn. High quality paper feels good in the hand.
The weight of a well-made book is like the weight of a good camera - it's
balanced and it exhudes quality. Books need shops to sell them. You can into
the shop and browse, and meet like-minded people. You can look at a girl and
know from the books she's browsing whether she's got a brain or a vacuum
between her ears. You can pick people up in bookshops. You can go into a
French bookshop in London and be greeted in French, and be in France for
half an hour while you browse and eavesdrop. You can go into the library in
the British Council in Addis Ababa and be in England for 30 minutes' respite
in the cool. Tyrants can burn books. Democrats can spot tyrants by their
book-burning habits. A child will never be able to teach herself to read
from a machine - she needs a book. Marcel Pagnol taught himself to read, but
his mother wouldn't let him have any books until he was 6 years old, 'for
fear of a cerebral explosion'. Books free everybody. How would a public
library system work without books? Free public libraries are one of the
crowning achievements of civilisation, asking nothing of their patrons other
than the ability to read quietly. No IT skills, no costly machines or plugs
or wires or blue screens of death. Having a Kindle is like having your own
CD player. Having a book is like having your own orchestra.
Bob
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