Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
I used to be an avid book-reader, and during that time I was one of perhaps two dozen regular customers of a specific bookstore where I was known by name. So, I am quite acquianted with the feeling of sitting in a quaint old shop flipping pages of some obscure pulp novel.
But that said, times change. I don't really think it's "sad" or "tragic" that bookstores are closing except in the way it affects the people running them. I'm of the opinion that as long as the information printed on a book survives, that book itself--the physical pages and ink--are more or less disposable. Now, are you entitled to an opinion of one over the other? Certainly, but I don't understand the deep emotional response people seem to have toward....books.
I mean....they are, ultimately, just books. I'm afraid I don't get it.
I dunno, my Barnes and Noble appears to be moving away from selling books, which would seem to indicate that people aren't buying them much.
^^ The emotional connection to books is probably because we're still part of a generation that started with books, rather than e-books.
And they were fucking awesome books that had pages and ink and letters and you could turn the pages and hold it it was the shit man
Normally, I'm rabidly for digital goods and digital distribution. But when it comes to books, and books specifically, I prefer ol' ink and paper for 3 reasons.
1) Like others have said, having a physical book and flipping through pages just feels good.
2) Textbooks. E-textbooks are shit.
3) I can put my books on a shelf and pretend to look classy.
Probably because books are fucking expensive. Like a new hardcover will run anywhere from $15-$30. Textbooks can run for like $50 and up. Literature books are about $10-$15. Heck the cheapest are the masses of genre books at $7 and up.
Re - the preservation of information. You know what, even physical books help here too. In the event of a system failure or complete crash, all that info is lost for good. With a printed book, as long as it is kept in relatively good condition(not terribly hard) and kept track of, the information exists for as long as the book exists.
I don't understand why people expect this big system failure or complete crash.
Like, the internet is much sturdier than that.
Also, why are you lighting your books on fire, man?
Because said books were Twilight novels.
Probably Fifty Shades of Grey, actually. Jeez, man, get with the times.
Oh. I wasn't really sure who you were responding to. But those are weird circumstances under which to damage a book.
You could be reading in the kitchen while cooking and accidentally light a page on fire.
Or be Haven.
You don't know how many books have people have burned by virtue of being Haven.
Same thing. Seriously.
Well best preservation is having physical and digital back ups. And occasionally crazy people who can memorize whole books, but they are only so good because Oral Trad has a highly variable but inevitable half life.
Well, the way I see it, physical/digital preservation is not enough if the conditions of said preservation are not carefully considered.
I'm surprised no one's pointed out that a major advantage print books have is lending. You can't really do that with an ereader unless you rent the whole thing.