The End of Books As We Know Them...

[Bendingoak]

I don't see them as sterling from our lives but adding to them. To be able to have a vast amount of books in such a small space is fantastic. I will always have some books but would love the space more.

[Blackthorn]

I don't see them as sterling from our lives but adding to them. To be able to have a vast amount of books in such a small space is fantastic. I will always have some books but would love the space more.

I think you meant to say "stealing from our lives," right John? Not sterling.

[Bendingoak]

Sometimes iPad changes my words. Thanks for the catch.

[Blackthorn]

iPad can be sneaky.

[Lost Sailer]

I hear what your saying about space saving, my office is filled to the brim with books, hell for that matter my whole house is, but I like the feel of them all around me, all I'm saying is it will be a real bummer when books propper become antiques...

[Cousi]

I don't think - or is that I hope? - that books will never truly go all digital. There is something almost mystical about the feel of a book and as has been said the weight of them around you. I look forward to adding a digital e-reader to my reading repertoire but that's for ease of use and portability. Storage is storage, even if its digital, there's only so much storage.

[Blackthorn]

I don't think - or is that I hope? - that books will never truly go all digital. There is something almost mystical about the feel of a book and as has been said the weight of them around you. I look forward to adding a digital e-reader to my reading repertoire but that's for ease of use and portability. Storage is storage, even if its digital, there's only so much storage.

If books ever DO go all digital, there will always be retro rebels like us who refuse to adapt to a soul-less way of reading.

[Bendingoak]

I don't think - or is that I hope? - that books will never truly go all digital. There is something almost mystical about the feel of a book and as has been said the weight of them around you. I look forward to adding a digital e-reader to my reading repertoire but that's for ease of use and portability. Storage is storage, even if its digital, there's only so much storage.

If books ever DO go all digital, there will always be retro rebels like us who refuse to adapt to a soul-less way of reading.

I don't exactly understand what you mean by soul-less way of reading?

[n11pilot]

I don't think - or is that I hope? - that books will never truly go all digital. There is something almost mystical about the feel of a book and as has been said the weight of them around you. I look forward to adding a digital e-reader to my reading repertoire but that's for ease of use and portability. Storage is storage, even if its digital, there's only so much storage.

If books ever DO go all digital, there will always be retro rebels like us who refuse to adapt to a soul-less way of reading.

I don't exactly understand what you mean by soul-less way of reading?

I can not speak for friend Blackthorn but I have a similar feeling about books. When I hold a book, a real book in my hand it is a tactile as well as a cerebral experience. I know that I can get essentially the same information form some form of e-reader but I can't get the same form of contact.

One of my favorite books "Plutarch's Lives" or "Parallel Lives" (Which by the way has helped me understand many an episode of "Paladin".) was written around two thousand years ago. When I hold that book in my hands I feel as if I am sharing ideas with a Greco-Roman historian who died many years before I was born. The act of holding the book, a product of the combined work of translators, leather workers, paper makers, printers, binders, well the list goes on, gives me a feeling of connection to the author. Perhaps it is the fact that the book itself is the work of the hand of man.

Maybe it is like the difference between a ride in a classic Duesenberg and a Toyota Corolla. Both cars get you there but one transports you with an experience of emotion, a sense of history, and style. The other is just a ride.

I am not explaining this very well. I guess if you don't get the feeling, you don't get the feeling, but you have to trust me, the feeling does exist in others.

[Blackthorn]

Pilot, you have a talent for explaining what I'm thinking. You said that very, very well, and you hit the nail right on the head. Yes, that is what I meant.

[Blackthorn]

As to soul-less, there's another way of saying it, too, as I sit here thinking about it. It's like this:

Book is to Kindle (or any other E-reader) as fedora is to baseball cap.

Fedoras have Soul. Baseball caps are soul-less.

[Bendingoak]

I still don't get the soul-less. Are you saying people who use kindles or baseball caps have no soul? I never understood those types of statements.


I understand having a book in hand. There are some books I will never give up but there is something really nice have so much in one small spot and have easy portable access.

[n11pilot]

I still don't get the soul-less. Are you saying people who use kindles or baseball caps have no soul? I never understood those types of statements.


I understand having a book in hand. There are some books I will never give up but there is something really nice have so much in one small spot and have easy portable access.

Ok, it is not about you the reader or you the baseball cap wearer. It is about the object itself. There are some objects that engender feelings, and enjoyment beyond their function. Those feelings and that enjoyment constitute the metaphorical "Soul" of the object.

[CharlieB]

OK, let me have a crack at it.

There is a certain authenticity about holding a book, particularly an old one, that digital will never replace. Imagine the differnce between seeing a photo of the Mona Lisa, and standing in front of the real thing.

I volunteer at our county historical society in the library/archives. I have been reviewig old tax records (won't go into why right now) but I was reviewing a book of records from 1783. To know that your are holding something that someone created that long ago casues a certain emotional reaction, for those who love history. Most of us in the library agree that we actually enjoy the smell of old books. The rag paper, the leather bindings. Please excuse me if I begin to wander....

CB

[Blackthorn]

I still don't get the soul-less. Are you saying people who use kindles or baseball caps have no soul? I never understood those types of statements.


I understand having a book in hand. There are some books I will never give up but there is something really nice have so much in one small spot and have easy portable access.

Never mind, John, it's complicated.