I generally buy the books I want to, so there has to be something special about the book if you are giving it to me as a gift. On the other hand, I do give special books as gifts (several people have received the illustrated Princess Bride this year), and I always give books to kids, to help them learn the dying art of page-turning.
The Princess Bride is a 1987 American romantic fantasy adventure comedy film directed and co- produced by Rob Reiner, and starring Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn, …
". . .it came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that, instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper on which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still bearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, that I began to understand their care.
“We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with thickset gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations – books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.”
A couple of years ago a friend gave me a nice looking, utterly boring book for Christmas. After suffering through 30 pages and determining I wasnt going to read it I contrived to leave it around the house in the places I normally leave books I’m reading, with a bookmark which I advanced each time he came over. He was satisfied and I finally retired the book with no one (including me, I suppose) the wiser. I am pretty picky about what I read, even many of the books I buy for myself go unread past the first chapter. Nobody not living in my skin can give me a book with any confidence.
@RiotDemon If you like Stephen King, you might like Dean Koontz’s book, “Watchers”.
Edit: I think I have an old paperback copy of it I could send you.
"Dark Rivers of the Heart is pretty good, too.
@Barney I’ve had several people suggest Koontz to me. Unfortunately I don’t read as much as I used to. I used to read on my lunch break at work. I can’t do that anymore. Even if I wear headphones and have a book in my face, there’s always someone that wants to talk to me. Inevitably someone will want to ask what I’m reading, and then want to chat about it.
If you want to send it to me, feel free. Might be a long time before I get around to reading it though, haha
Those requirements will give you instant, guaranteed, planned, early obsolescence.
A classic perpetual “next year’s model” problem.
OTOH, the traditional model might be quite beautiful, handles nicely without need for upgrades, (and varying somewhat by contents and condition), might well have value across the ages.
And works beautiful offline, and also out of take if power or signal, at least in the presence of a lighting source.
any gift the recipient will use and/or enjoy is a good gift. my partner and i both keep book wishlists on amazon year round. me, i have a list for ‘regular’ books and a list for cookbooks.
screen reading fatigues not only my eyes but also my brain too quickly. i like to know where i’m at in a book by just looking at it, and to not be distracted by the rest of the entire internet while i’m reading. also my right eye twitches if i read on a screen for very long. don’t have to worry about making sure a book is charged before i sit down with it, either. also, i like the way books look on a shelf. i’m a collector of all kinds of things so part of the enjoyment for me is having the physical object to keep, even if i never look at it again.
i’m not anti-e-reading at all, it’s just not for me.
@jerk_nugget I love books too but ebooks are easier on my hands. Once I picked up a Kindle I stopped reading print. The e-ink type readers (Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite) last for maybe a month on a charge, and most people don’t have a screen fatigue problem with them. Have you tried one? They look pretty much like a book page. Plus I can throw my Paperwhite in a zip-loc bag, light my candles, turn off the lights, and take a bubble bath while I read. Sometimes chocolate is involved (sometimes candy corn).
I have a friend that sends me books for my birthday. I put them on a shelf and get the ebook from the library.
My Kindle and e-books together have allowed me to free up some necessary physical space. And to assist in the pursuit of the idea of owning fewer physically things.
Even given as much as I love books, I do not want my existence to become merely a rabbit-warren of bookshelves.
Agreed, a well designed e-ink reader is very easy in the eyes.
I too like the feel of a book in my hands. I like seeing where something is on a page and being able to find that place again (if I need to) by remembering where I saw it on that page. I have a kindle and the e-ink is easy on the eyes but it’s just not the same as curling up with a paper book to me. As a matter of fact, I’m on my 3rd kindle. The usb charging port has broken on every single one. And no… I don’t abuse them. Sister’s did the same thing as did granddaughter’s.
If you are good with the Kindle models without built in lighting, you can get older Kindles very cheaply (well under $30) from eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon warehouse.
I am very fond of the Kindle 2, the Kindle Keyboard, and the Kindle Touch.
All also can play mp3 files. They come with headphone jacks.
They all do rather nice Text-To-Speech.
No Bluetooth in them, but you can use a third party Bluetooth dongle if you want to use Bluetooth headphones.
I don’t know of these play audible does. Never tried.
The brand new Kindle Oasis 2 is waterproof, plays audible files, prob does TTS (did not look this up), and works with Bluetooth headphones.
But sticker shock there!
I hope Amazon will add Bluetooth and audible/audiobook compatibility to future Kindle Paperwhite versions.
But audiobooks/audible play very nicely on Android and iOS, so perhaps there is little need.
I prefer one physical book over a single e-book, but, in general, 40 e-books are better than 40 physical books.
I primarily read eBooks, but hard-copies still have their place.
The collectible aspect, if you are inclined for that sort of thing. It usually isn’t a monetary thing, but more often a tangible reminder of that time in your life.
If a storm knocks out power for any significant amount of time, it is nice to have a few books on hand.
Most airline flights are “one book flights”, so it often makes sense to conserve battery-life (or perhaps just have one less device to keep up with) and go with a hard-copy.
If I am going to the park and hanging out under a tree, I prefer a paperback in my back pocket. If somebody says “wanna play some ultimate frisbee?” , I can leave my paperback under the tree and if it “walks away by itself”, it isn’t a huge tragedy.
Things that I miss about books being the “normal” way to read
I have some people on my Xmas shopping list that are now way harder to shop for. You can gift an e-book, but it lacks the impact of an under-the-tree, open-it-up on Christmas morning present.
Passing books from generation to generation
Try as they might, eBooks still have yet to master the ability to grab a book, leaf through it, and in a matter of seconds, find that particular passage that you are searching for.
Recognizing what someone is reading by the cover and striking up a conversation
Having my parents give me a book as a gift and inscribing the inside front cover.
Things that I miss about books being the “normal” way to read
I have some people on my Xmas shopping list that are now way harder to shop for. You can gift an e-book, but it lacks the impact of an under-the-tree, open-it-up on Christmas morning present.
Passing books from generation to generation
Try as they might, eBooks still have yet to master the ability to grab a book, leaf through it, and in a matter of seconds, find that particular passage that you are searching for.
Recognizing what someone is reading by the cover and striking up a conversation
Having my parents give me a book as a gift and inscribing the inside front cover.
Books can be great gifts. I think this may be a decent starting criteria.
It should be ideally a personal endorsement (informed by knowledge of the recipient).
If it’s a paperback, mind the print. Those smudged, blocky, practically illegible letters. Who printed this, Cthulhu?
(Maybe this one is just me.)
The recipient should be receptive to reading and to receiving books as gifts — not illiterate, not a child. (Even children who read tend to prefer toys. Swap the book with one of the gifts for the dog, and you’ll have better success.)
@InnocuousFarmer Trade paperbacks are my preferred format. Lighter weight and more comfortable to hold than a hardback, but with the larger print, higher quality printing, fancy chapter headers and illustrations you get with a hardback. About 10% of them have this silky soft cover that feels almost like cloth, and those are the most enjoyable to spend time with. I’ve been reading a trilogy of +/-1,000 page paperbacks I was loaned, and hand fatigue is an issue, along with wear and tear due to the thickness of the spine. Im putting more wear than I’d prefer on a borrowed item.
@InnocuousFarmer While I am going to give you a big thumbs up on the following sentiment
It should be ideally a personal endorsement (informed by knowledge of the recipient).
I am going to disagree with you on the following point:
not a child. (Even children who read tend to prefer toys. Swap the book with one of the gifts for the dog, and you’ll have better success.)
I have encountered kids (some my own, some nieces and nephews) where a book would be their absolute favorite gift. But like you mentioned, you have to know your recipient and just because they were that way last year, doesn’t me they still feel that way.
@DrWorm Fair enough. I was talking about my experiences with children generally, but mostly about myself. I had this story about how I was an ungrateful dick when I was a kid, even though I liked reading and I got a book that was a thoughtful gift. Decided it was too wordy and not a good story.
I guess my main point wasn’t that every child would prefer not to get a book, but that children would more often surprise you by wanting shiny plastic baubles, or whatever, even when a book would be an objectively better gift from their perspective.
@DrWorm I just gave a 4 yr, 3 yr, and 18 mo a book each. I had to read them over and over. The 4 year old said he loved his book because it was funny. He then took the 3 yr old’s book, had me read it to him several times and then started to tell me a far more elaborate story, turning the pages one by one. There is something with a physical book that you just can’t replace with an electronic one.
@DrWorm Agreed. My grandchildren LOVE getting books. As long as it is books that are chosen for them and their personal reading habits. I do get them toys anyway but that’s because of me… not them. They ask for the books. They are 14, 12 and 6.
Well, “allegedly former child”. Some persons claim that the condition persists.
But then I was giving away books because had run out of room for them by junior high.
My friends sometimes got annoyed with me; they would invite me over, I would get fascinated by a book, and sit down and read something.
Mr parents made me stop doing that. The deal was, I would allowed to look at other people’s books. Then if I wanted something, i made a note, and parents world try to get it from the library or ILL, so long as I stopped being rude to my friends.
@f00l The more I think about it, and having read the replies in this thread (I think I may have noticed a pattern ), the more I doubt my recollection of my own childhood. Maybe I preferred reading by nature, or maybe books were the only entertainment I was allowed to have (relatively) free access to. I wouldn’t want to make a wager.
I don’t really recall any of my friends having books… I was more prone to getting recommendations and lent paperbacks from adults at the church my family went to. I do remember going through a decent number of library books, routinely not hearing people talking to me while reading (parents loved that), and occasionally reading adult books that went at least half over my head… I had a longer attention span, back then, but had no problem blowing past passages without grokking them, or for that matter finishing a book and not remembering its contents a week later.
The current electronic toys for kids are really immersive. Game systems etc.
I can’t really imagine kids preferring books to those, the kids who preferred books might be kinda uncommon.
I dont think gaming (modern usage) is bad per se. Fun. Develop some skills. All that.
But way overdone. addictive or habituating. Wait way way over-chosen and over-preferred by many kids. Given the time cost and closed-off universe of very limited choices and demands, compared to “life”.
And while some skills get developed, other skills languish or are neglected. Such as, fitness, reading, comprehending difficult things in prose, trad sports, stuff that involves cooperating f2f, family activities, being outdoors, being patient in things that involves others, doing things with physical tools or your hands, true creativity, building real stuff, etc.
If I had young kids, I wonder what my attitude about gaming would be.
When I was young (“get off my lawn!” ), as we grew up, our activities usually or often seemed to involve increasingly complex and adult demands and social interactions. Even rock and roll and the counterculture involved a lot of that, often enough. Real life and stuff.
Increasingly complex tech and media consumption, and gaming, seems to cut one off from, and isolate one to a degree, from the social and responsibility demands of adult life in a manner different from the stuff I remember doing. Fine if not overdone.
I can see modern kids not wanting books in nearly the way I and some of my friends did. So many sophisticated media complete for their attention.
In the way that millennials don’t understand complex prose the way we commonly did growing up.
The way people wrote common letters and notes used to resemble the quality of printed prose essays from that time.
Spelling, punctuation, etc fell apart in the 80’s/90’s as kids grew up with computers and keyboards and access to online.
Typed prose online migrated to the “lol” variety. Nothing wrong with that. Perhaps. I just lament the deterioration and rarity of “the rest of it”.
Not intended as a “things were better when” bitch. Things change. Language and communication customs migrate.
Tho I do wonder about the relationship between the changes in communication styles and depth/complexity/reflectiveness of expressed thought, and the changes in the craziness of the current public social/political environments.
There are so many SF stories about how the species kinda destroys itself be being clever, but not truly intelligent.
Are we “living” such an event now?
(I can still spell, but not when using a swipe keyboard, and I’m hopeless proofreading my own stuff, and I use a swipe kb because I’m lazy.
Re punctuation, the rules are slipping out of my brain, since no one except a few people over age 45 seems to care about it anyway.
Besides, my memory sucks.)
@f00l I am haunted by the notion that all the bitching old people are correct, and that generationally lowered expectations are the way of the world. I thought there was a term for that, maybe a Wikipedia page. I can’t find it, now.
I suppose it works both ways, though, morphing ideas of what is normal. There’s the recency of, say, women’s suffrage, versus the gut feeling (from my recently grown gut) that it’d be insane for that to be a question, nevermind a question given the opposite answer.
I bet there are a more than a couple shoes yet to drop as the species struggles to keep up with the rate of changes technical, cultural/political, economic, and natural. I look forward to a period when this has all settled down a little, when the counter-counter-counter-reactions have played out. I could imagine (this might be wildly optimistic) people being better at parsing the distinction between media and information, “what-if” stories and knowledge; and people being more mindful of the already old maxim about textual communication lacking a great deal of information, in tone, emphasis, body language (and now, any social context whatsoever — age, status, job, relationship — any sense of who you’re talking to and why they’re talking). I wonder if the old days of text being less of a direct attempt at representation of verbal communication (the milleniums and their abysmal use of exclamation marks), and more of its own communication technology, helped with that kind of thing.
All the social justice stuff seems in full-on witch hunt mode currently, but maybe human nature is such that overreaction is the only kind of reaction available. It’s much better that than nothing, still, assuming it all settles down a little, in time (as opposed to indefinite continued escalation from both… err… (sides?)). Or, maybe it’s more what you were alluding to, that the culture rests mainly with people who lack the skills to avoid overreacting.
About the generational decline in writing skills, I have noticed that the genre fiction that I sometimes read is better written than the free mass-targeted Kindle books from Amazon. I wonder if that means anything. I’ve stopped looking at Amazon’s free books, because I’m not interested in most of them, and the ones that might be fun, content-wise, have… really bad prose. I’m not (even remotely) well read. I’m not that picky. The writing is terrible.
Hmm. This is what happens when I try to reply before drinking coffee. I wanted to talk about isolation and videogames. I have thought about isolation a bit… Maybe next time, then.
I have noticed that the genre fiction that I sometimes read is better written than the free mass-targeted Kindle books from Amazon.
I’ve stopped looking at Amazon’s free books, because I’m not interested in most of them, and the ones that might be fun, content-wise, have… really bad prose. I’m not (even remotely) well read. I’m not that picky. The writing is terrible.
A few years back amazon has lots of free books that were decent. Kindle rankings rewarded that in various ways. So self/published quality writers used this.
Then amazon changed the algorithms. Now the only thing that makes sense for a decent writer who can actually sell a book, is to do something like make a 1st book in a series, or related novella, free, as a taste.
Otherwise be wary of free books that aren’t classics. And check reviews.
and people being more mindful of the already old maxim about textual communication lacking a great deal of information, in tone, emphasis, body language (and now, any social context whatsoever — age, status, job, relationship — any sense of who you’re talking to and why they’re talking). I wonder if the old days of text being less of a direct attempt at representation of verbal communication
In the old days of letter writing, people often had the courtesy to introduce themselves, and the wit to give reasonable context. And people were not so pressured for time and instancy, they were perhaps more willing to understand the whole.
Taking the time to understand was, in my experience, a virtue.
And rudeness was less tolerated on many, but not all, topics.
“Civilized” and unjustifiable patronising and insulting remarks about entire groups of people went on a lot tho.
It was better is some ways, bit hardly wonderful.
And black/white thinking good/evil self-righteous thinking was all over the place, at least in my landscape while growing up.
All the social justice stuff seems in full-on witch hunt mode currently
Some witch hunting is socially rewarded within various groups, at the moment.
And the things seems to be, among some, that trolling and misrepresentation are virtues. Including from some huge outlets.
Among others who intend to speak and think well, who may have been marginalized in the past, there is a sometimes huge intellectual overreach. A failure to understand other POVs. A failure to listen. A failure to moderate to a degree. Those us understandable perhaps but we must get past it.
failure to understand that often many on “another side” are suffering from bad social situations and setups similar to one’s own.
And the most insane voices are rewarded with massive attention and with sucking all the oxygen out of the room. And getting speaking gigs and book deals.
And a failure of the culture at large to learn or try to understand how and what a political or historical truth is. And what is merely a spin and a questionable grievance or partisan engineering.
So much of the news engine has been taken over by social, by the art of attack, fake it, spin it.
And outlets that don’t practice extreme spin are often exercising potential “bias by omission.”. They may not fake attacks. They may try for excellence. But they are often not actually dealing openly with what news and political objectivity might be. So these outlets, even of they are pretty solid, just leave themselves open to attack. And if they did even far better, trolls would still be trying to destroy them by whatever means.
Dishonest people get book contacts and visibility. Honest people, or people who try for honesty, get an instant attempt to discredit. Not constructive criticism. Outright lies, misinformation, spin well beyond rationality.
And if the outlets who attempt solid journalism did deal with the topic of “what is news objectivity”, it would instantly be co-opted, spun, and taken over by the trolls.
And where is the genuine discussion among people who talk like adults, not just fake it, troll it, or stick to the checklist of talking points?
(cnn panels are near useless because it’s all pre-scripted talking points. A few exceptions there. But basically you hear this POV you already know. And then that POV you already know. Waste of time.)
I sometimes wonder if we are going to destroy ourselves much faster than I ever thought possible.
To not head in that direction means, among other things, that the parties have to stop yelling outright lies or lies by omission. Starting with the economy I would think, since the economy drives a lot of the online lying and other outrage.
Right now the talk by politicians about the economy tends to be either flat out lying or very shallow. There are exceptions.
Then the “culture wars”. That seemed e to be a matter of “are we as a society going to grow up? Or not?”.
Luke recognizing that sometimes real problems have gone unrecognized and should be addressed. That trollers can and should be ignored until they stop trolling.
That people have to really listen across the divides. That the proposed “solutions” which might not fix anything and might make things worse. That things are complicated and responding primarily to feel-good slogans just allow someone else to take advantage of you.
That the real likely cost of solutions must be addressed. The there is virtue in the center, in bipartisan negotiations, in regular order, in civility, in getting to know people will across the political devide, in finding common ground, and in talking through problems like adults.
That the conduct of very large and very powerful organizations should be examined. That the average person and average consumer needs a great deal of transparency, or the person can function at best, only as a somewhat victim in some areas.
That partisan slogans tend not to be models for solving things. And not for telling the trusth.
That we are almost certainly handing and have handed much of the economic, military, and technical power of the future to China and we aren’t even addressing that.
(both parties seriously at fault. Current admin doesn’t understand there is a prob, apparently).
All our social issues will look very very different when we are begging China for a spot at the cool kids table and hoping they will say “yes”.
How long do we have before it’s obvious we are not number 1? 20 Years? 5 years? It will be fast, if things go at the current rate.
China’s leadership may be “quasi limited free market info-control fascists”.
They have serious vulnerabilities. but they are not children. If we continue to be politically idiotic, how do we compete with them?
And when (in this scenario) china has gone ahead, there may be very little liklihoid we will ever catch up. Ever.
Any idea of how many engineers they have? How many coders? economists? Security experts? How many businesspersons? How good those are?
Are their young discouraged from being trained to the very highest level of technical competency due to the incredible debt costs, as is often the case here?
My thinking is that china will try to do whatever it takes to dominate us technologically and economically. Whatever the short term cost.
And we are handing them the means. Even if they got no tech from us, out insane and dishonest political discourse is itself enough to give them the advantage.
The last century was the “American century”. Right now it doesn’t look like the current century will be anything close to that.
As for whether we as a culture will grow up? Or grow up in time to stop throwing away so much? I really have no sense of the answer to that.
Apologies for rant. I have to go do something else with my brain now. This got longer than I intended.
: p.
@InnocuousFarmer@f00l My first jobs as a teenager were apprenticing under my mom, who was an accountant. One of the most valuable things she taught me was to never use a calculator unless I already knew the answer. Sum the numbers in my head and check them with the 10 key. I can’t even guess how much money it has saved me at the checkout knowing what my total should be and catching cash register errors. When I taught grant writing for nonprofits I tried to impress a parallel wisdom, to never use spell check as a substitute for proper spelling and grammar. Grant writing need not be impeccable, but it must certainly be comprehensible. I was frankly embarrassed by the low literacy level and lack of competency displayed in most of the grant applications we received, most of them written by professionals with high levels of educational attainment. It used to make me genuinely angry, as our community tends to be consistently underfunded by state and national grantors. Children and old people go to bed hungry in our city because the PhDs at our nonprofits can’t be bothered to construct proper sentences made up of the intended words or fill out forms completely.
@f00l Ah yeah, I meant the temporarily free books that were (I presume) intended to be exchanged for money most of the time. The “Kindle First”, renamed to “Amazon First Reads” thing. It’s one of the Prime benefits.
Heh, that was a long rant.
I’m still holding out hope for some memes (common wisdom, not image macros) to emerge, that can allow partisans (I’m thinking of people who’ve been, as I see it, ensorcelled by propaganda) to see a world that’s full of relatable others, and a world wherein a political spectrum doesn’t have a centerline that, when crossed, turns a fellow citizen into an enemy… can’t imagine how that could come about, though. Internalized righteous indignation is a kind of cancer. It’s hard to challenge directly, as you tend to wind up challenging people’s sense of identity, which provokes a strong reaction. I think visible, working examples would go a long way. Can’t point to any, of course…
I see China’s dominance as a foregone conclusion. They have so many more people. I can’t imagine how broken the world would have to be for that disproportionately large population to not catch up, and supersede the US’s, eventually, in wealth, and then in everything that follows from wealth. Of course, the implications of that happening under the jurisdiction of their particular single party is disturbing. (Did you know that China’s military is under the control of the party, rather than the state? I learned that a few days ago.)
I’ve been totally digital for books since 2011, and I don’t miss physicals at all. But I’m about as far from sentimental as one can get, so I don’t care about the scent or feel or experience of reading; it’s data transfer, so it should be as efficient as possible.
My Kindle Paperwhite:
Currently holds hundreds of books.
Lasts over a month on a charge.
Is very easy to pack (great on vacation instead of taking several physical books).
Causes no more eye strain than a physical book (assuming good lighting).
Allows me to get thousands of works for free.
Prevents me from having to spend the time and fuel to go to a physical book store.
Lets me lend it to others in the same ecosystem for free.
It also keeps a centralized, searchable, backed up copy of all highlights and comments in every book I’ve ever read on the platform, accessible from any computer or smartphone. And when I get the next version, all these features go along with it automatically.
From a purely pragmatic perspective, I just don’t see the case for them, so a physical book would be a bad gift for me. But I have many friends who admit they are sentimental about it in some way, so there are many people for whom it would still be a good gift.
E-books also move the market toward monopolization the selling and distribution of books.
And then, after the Great Electronic Pulse, persons with physical libraries will be with rich, and have knowledge, power, and valuable sets of facts, data, history, attitudes and beliefs, personal histories, possibities, methods; or the book owners will be prey, for their property.
It’s just Data Transfer. Persistence of possibility even after the grid goes dark.
other than efficiency, what about data decay once information has been transferred to your head? I find that 1) the type of text and 2) my needs of the text determines how i read.
I usually have an ebook, a physical book, and an audio book that i’m in the middle of. I would know less if I limited myself to my kindle. As time passes, the kindle has become more of a gimmick compared to my phone… at this point it is just an irrational sunk cost bias (kindles are overpriced and it irritates me) i’m slowly disabusing myself of
I used to enjoy my kindle, but now i use google books, it is always on me (phone) and i can better mark up my page as well as access my notes from my book. I feel as if the Kindle actively discourages me from interacting with my text. Fine if i want to take a data dump, but it isn’t useful if I need to grok the text.
I use ebooks for linear reading of texts with simple information. The more complex the text, the less likely I am to use an ebook.
I use audio books for similar info dumps. At 3x speed i can tolerate or enjoy text i wouldn’t be able to read via dead trees. Also, i can’t read while driving, but i can absorb information, so i usually have an audio book queued up.
A physical book is best when I need to play with the information to make it my own. This could include flipping back and forth btw diagrams, or organizing my thoughts with different symbols and colors of ink (if the uniball jetstream 4n1 shows up on meh, i know i’ll bite)
I also use the spatial separation of physical pages as a means of organizing my thoughts. What comes first? where does this idea fit into the text?
I use ebooks for non-fiction what i want to compile and easily access, but i don’t need to remember the details… books like “Vital Question” by Nick lane. Packed with info, and the details matter, but i’ll remembered them without an easy to check source.
I save audiobooks for things like “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” which is entertaining but I don’t think will serve me later on (idk if it has a biblio in the back, but if so, the better for me not to need the book to access the sources).
There are some ebooks i would swtich to audiobook if the audiobooks were cheaper.
Note, none of this has to do with sentimentality. If amazon didn’t use their monopoly power to push a crappy device, i am guessing that i could be using a slim, water proof, 4 color eink device right now i could easily mark up. My hunch is that the marketing dept is saving that for a few years out, bleeding margins from customers b/c they have excellent intel on what customer’s will pay.
Idk if e-book readers are overpriced re hardware. I thought they were subsidized, to drive monopolistic book sales, but am uneducated re the economics of the e-book distributor industry.
I own a number vintage kindles and other e-readers, because I find them to be lovely and intriguing.
The aesthetics of the readers are quite apart from the aesthetics of a book as physical object, or as a designed text.
Like you, I use my phone a lot. I hadn’t tried Google books much. Must do so.
And I always have an audiobook or three going, and thousands of unplayed podcasts. Like you, I speed them up as much as I can tolerate. I can’t listen to npr or watch the news much anymore. No speed controls.
And again apart are the real personal wonderments: What happens when those words and thoughts enter my head.
I used to be bothered by the content-in-brain-info-decay you mentioned. Far less so now.
Due to personal habits and my concentrations in reading, my younger self was busy trying to make and comprehend as “subtly but rigorousy defined absolutes” just about everything.
But I rather gave the intensity of the practice up somewhat after looking harder at words/language/thoughts in themselves.
Text-reading is always a sampling of possibly meanings. Even in math. Esp in math, from a certain perspective?
And we have only our biological brains, not a fantasy or SF Supermind. Or so it appears to me, regarding mine, at present.
So I let the information decay proceed without great grief. And simply try to do something with the gain incurred by reading those words, that text, that layout. One’s mind inhaling that set of coded possibilities offered to me by another.
Telepathy of a sort can occur, given access to a book. Or a letter or manuscript. Or a library.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
…
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and the innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
…
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
@f00l I used to play a role playing game called Aftermath, a post-holocaust setting. The two most valuable things a person could own were a reloader that matched your gun so you could make your own bullets, and books on how to actually do things. My character was the sole survivor in a Magnificent Seven style story wherein we were defending a librarian and his pretty daughter in an intact public library, and ended up marrying the daughter and settling down.
This is a little beside the “gift” issue, but for me the strongest argument for physical books is that you can buy them used. One friend of mine went fully over to the kindle, but that means he has to buy all his (non public domain) books from Amazon. I buy most of my books from used bookstores and library sales. He spends a few hundred a month, I spend maybe 40.
the strongest argument for physical books is that you can buy them used
@lifftchi That goes with the resale aspect too. It’s legal to lend or resell a book (or any physical media like a DVD, CD, tape, etc.). It’s not legal with a digital copy.
That is why corporations want to do away with physical media. Low distribution costs + eliminating the legal used market “competition” = more profits.
My personal recommendation for someone who hasn’t picked up a book in 3 or more years is “Tales from Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet. I feel he is a better author than songwriter.
It isn’t highbrow, but it is a quick fun read.
Whether or not to by a real book depends on 2 things: the recipient and the book.
I’m on my 5th e-reader (only one did I break), had a Sony e-ink, got the first Nook Color and never looked back. Have thousands of books there and still a fair number of real ones. I thought the transition would be difficult, but it wasn’t. I get my public domain books anywhere I want and can side load them. (Go BN!)
I have and still do treasure some real books. I rarely get them as gifts anymore, but those that I do, are ones that I want in that form, and are often work related. That and some books that are not pleasure reading.
But I give books, especially to a friend or two who has never been able to make the adjustment.
Even if we overlook the ‘sentimental benefits’ of physical books, we can still find a particular set of advances in compression with e - books. I thing that is much easier to enter in the reading flow (to ‘get into the book’) while reading physical, rather than an electronic book.
Reason for that likely lies in the fact that our eyes and brain find much more natural (thus less stressful) to read from paper than from computer screens. Also, there is significantly bigger pressure from distracters in context of reading an e - book from some computer device.
However, the e - books (and electronic material in general) also have their advances, such as easier and faster storage, searching and sharing.
During my life I’ve read plenty of both physical and e - books, and I could say that benefits of physical books are most significant in the context of complex pieces, and also the ones which require ‘full attention’ to reading the content (such as some fiction novels, some relatively abstract contents…). On the other side, e - materials are more appropriate for more simple contents or ones that are supposed to be read shallowly and/or selectively (such as technical documentation, manuals, short articles…).
Therefore, I’d say that physical book (under the assumption that is appropriate and interesting for receiver :)) can be a wonderful present. Especially if the receiver also possesses ‘sentimental bond’ to that kind of medium.
But key thing is that one must have in mind that the CONTENT of the book is the main thing which will (or won’t) give value to the gift
One benefit of e-books is that, with e-books, when my Uncle picks up my suitcase (for a weeks stay) to load it, he didn’t do it and several other suitcases on his sandaled feet, and then accidentally swear loudly at the weight (in front of young children); and ask if I am carrying a suitcase of “compressed matter” …
Being a teenager at the time, I cheerfully gave a smartass reply.
Every time I see a favorite kids’ book in e-book form- like Curious George, it makes me sad. Picture books should be on paper. If I need a baby shower gift I always find some Boynton board books.
@Pantheist I didn’t know I needed to explain the value of an actual, physical book to this bunch, but, I suppose, especially since I’ve found myself in an especially reflective, especially intoxicated state, I could relate some of the benefits of keeping a library and gifting books to others.
Firstly, books used to be seen as treasures. They were expensive and rare. A lot of hard work went into them. Having a library, or, honestly, having access to information or entertainment, was a rare thing. It wasn’t a chore or an obligation, it was an honor. It was something a person could do to benefit one’s family for many generations to come.
In today’s world, where we have access to so much information, cultivating a true library is an art form. One must sample many of the world’s literary delicacies and perhaps learn to specialize in a few in order to build something worth our time and worth the notice of others.
More importantly, we learn more about ourselves through literature. A great man once told me “We do not write because we have the answers, we write to find them.” I believe this to be true, but I think it also applies to the things we read. We search for things that resonate with us and, more often than not, we find that in the written word.
In terms of gift giving, which I believe to be an emotional act, the books we love reveal something deeply personal about ourselves or those for whom we care. Books speak to our souls and so, when we decide to give a book as a gift, it is like giving a small part of oneself to someone else. Perhaps you’re trying to explain yourself to someone else or you believe that the book will send a beneficial message. The book may also simply be one that you think the recipient will enjoy, either way, it shows reflection and awareness.
While many may overlook the thoughtfulness, the passion, the meaning behind the gift of a book, I think it is one of the most intimate and meaningful gifts a person could give and one of the most memorable one could receive.
Edits are forthcoming. This is just a first blurt.
And sometimes, would have some book-loving, non-physical essence of myself be free to slip into residences of book lovers, when no one is home, being there unseen, unheard, unremarked? No trace. Just to look at the books. Nothing else.
For those decades of my life during which persons actually visited each other’s residences, if the books were visible, I would aim straight at them, if I could do so without being rude.
And I would rest my eyes a little on each title, head turned slightly sideways.
If the books spilled all over the house, so much the better. This took time, and disrupted other expected purposes. But …
The larger the residence’s library, the less likely the host to mind my indulgence. We would ask questions about books never seen before. Speak of our loves.
And so often this thread weaved into a full cloth of conversation that carried us for hours.
For so many people I liked, books were everywhere in their homes.
So when I behaved in this way; they understood. They forgave.
@f00l I tend to gravitate towards a book collection when I see one, too. When I was a teenager, I used to judge my friends by their bookshelves. Whenever I would go to someone’s house for the first time, I would go directly to their bookcase. This was how I determined whether or not the person was going to be a good friend for me.
No one really understood what I was doing until one day, my friend and I went to someone else’s house. I had never been there, so I went right to their bookcase and started reading the titles. When I looked up, my friend was looking at me, smiling in her sly sort of way.
“What?” I asked her, a little embarrassed.
“I just love watching you look at someone’s books while you silently judge them.”
I had been found out. She and I were very close for a long time.
I never turned down or thought less of friendship, or less of anyone, if they had few books, or had books that excited me less (that I recall). It just meant we didn’t share those fascinations. And prob would never have those sorts of conversations.
There are what, 7-8 billion plus of us? Also almost each human with multiple friends, each friendship individualized?
I’m down with that.
But common and shared wonder at written words and literature can add infinite dimensions to the areas of life and thought and experience included in the friendship.
This does not make some friendships 'better" or “worse” to me. They each have their qualities.
Some of the finest, most generous, most constant, most empathetic and forgiving people I know barely read books. Some of these people possess great intelligence, apparently infinite personal goodness, and we share a great depth of trust.
I have close friends who barely read books, with whom I share a life of experiences, a community, or other shared interests.
So it’s all cool.
But I still want to look at everyone’s books. And if I see ones that get my strong interest, there’s a whole world of potential shared exploration.
Instant potential resonance.
And I admit this: when I meet someone who is excited about the books I love, or is excited by the books or the conceptual areas that fascinate me, esp if they speak of the subject matters in ways that make me want to listen carefully: that’s kinda my idea of a serious personal lottery win.
My SIL is as smart as anytime else in the family. But her family of origin is perhaps a little less “obsessed” or something.
Note, we are not a great family of intellectuals or anything. But when my SIL went to a house belonging to one of my cousins recently for the first time, she wandered around, and then came back to her hubby (my esteemed younger brother), me, and two of my cousins.
She smiled, sighed, and said, cheerfully,
“Your family and all of your books! Every house! Every time! Every single time!”
She never got to see my Always-Right Grandmother’s house (the house I remember from early childhood), filled to the brim with stacks and stacks of American and European history, political history and philosophy, and printed copies if the Congressional Record. Several rooms in the house held nothing else.
Always-Right Grandmother, an unrepentant far-right conservative, used to read and recite from memory constantly to us when we were pre-kindergarten.
Kipling. Tennyson (who I barely remember). AA Milne. L Frank Baum. The Declaration Of Independence. Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Edmund Burke. Other stuff.
We used to tease and torment her constantly when she did this, pointing out lots of “obvious communist influence” everywhere in literature (she was seriously mono-topic-anti-communiist) We just made up conspiracies in order to mess with her.
She knew we were teasing her. She did not mind. She just helped us make all these “invented and imaginary threats to western culture and freedom” more and more fabulous and SF; all part of the ongoing joke.
@f00l While I read almost exclusively actual paper books, and read constantly, I’m afraid you wouldn’t find my library to be very enlightening. I keep only a handful of books, and give away, donate or trade all the rest. Consequently my personal library consists only of the 20 or so books I have stacked up waiting for my attention, perhaps 50 books that are old favorites that I reread often, and perhaps another 50 waiting for disposition. For someone with a life-long reading habit that’s a paltry library indeed.
When I think about books, I touch my shelf.
I like my women like I like my books - well read, and leather bound.
/giphy I like big books and I cannot lie
@Pavlov
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/i-touch-my-shelf?ref=meh_com
(HI, @Marcee!)
@MrsPavlov
And how do they - the books and the women - like you?
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/books-no-electricity-required?ref=meh_com
(Hi, @jasneko!)
@narfcake
I found a book you may be interested in.
Check Woot in a couple of minutes…
@narfcake
From Narfs Top 10
Bookish
https://shirt.woot.com/offers/bookish
@mflassy Thanks, but uhhh … I think I’ll pass on that book.
@narfcake
Did you NOT look at the available sellers?
You could get it for $5.69
Or is it not a good book?
@narfcake
Is it just me, or does any else also store their books in the refrigerator?
@shahnm It keeps the ideas from going stale
@shahnm One of my favorite episodes of “Friends” involved Joey’s habit of stashing books in the freezer when they got too scary or sad.
I’ll admit to doing that at the end of “Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince”.
I generally buy the books I want to, so there has to be something special about the book if you are giving it to me as a gift. On the other hand, I do give special books as gifts (several people have received the illustrated Princess Bride this year), and I always give books to kids, to help them learn the dying art of page-turning.
@simplersimon I love The Princess Bride! I didn’t know they turned it into a book
@ragingredd
The author did just that.
Are we being trolled?
Originally published:
1973
@f00l
/giphy inconceivable
/giphy books!
Gene Wolfe:
". . .it came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that, instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper on which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still bearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, that I began to understand their care.
“We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with thickset gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations – books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.”
@lifftchi
Wow.
@lifftchi - Book of the New Sun? Could you give us a title reference?
@aetris yup, it’s from the first book. Shadow of the Torturer.
A couple of years ago a friend gave me a nice looking, utterly boring book for Christmas. After suffering through 30 pages and determining I wasnt going to read it I contrived to leave it around the house in the places I normally leave books I’m reading, with a bookmark which I advanced each time he came over. He was satisfied and I finally retired the book with no one (including me, I suppose) the wiser. I am pretty picky about what I read, even many of the books I buy for myself go unread past the first chapter. Nobody not living in my skin can give me a book with any confidence.
@moondrake
People have given me delightful books I knew not of.
And books I intend to get to someday.
And books I have little interest in.
Crapshoot. But an interesting one.
No one gets to guilt me into reading something tho. I gotts want to, and be in the mood at the moment, or no go.
Unless you’re buying me the newest Stephen King book, don’t bother, it’s probably not for me.
@RiotDemon If you like Stephen King, you might like Dean Koontz’s book, “Watchers”.
Edit: I think I have an old paperback copy of it I could send you.
"Dark Rivers of the Heart is pretty good, too.
@Barney I’ve had several people suggest Koontz to me. Unfortunately I don’t read as much as I used to. I used to read on my lunch break at work. I can’t do that anymore. Even if I wear headphones and have a book in my face, there’s always someone that wants to talk to me. Inevitably someone will want to ask what I’m reading, and then want to chat about it.
If you want to send it to me, feel free. Might be a long time before I get around to reading it though, haha
@RiotDemon
When I want to read during off time while at a work loc, I hide.
And I read.
A book is still a good gift. Just make sure it does 4k, has at least a 1 TB drive and has wireless controllers.
@miko1
Those requirements will give you instant, guaranteed, planned, early obsolescence.
A classic perpetual “next year’s model” problem.
OTOH, the traditional model might be quite beautiful, handles nicely without need for upgrades, (and varying somewhat by contents and condition), might well have value across the ages.
And works beautiful offline, and also out of take if power or signal, at least in the presence of a lighting source.
any gift the recipient will use and/or enjoy is a good gift. my partner and i both keep book wishlists on amazon year round. me, i have a list for ‘regular’ books and a list for cookbooks.
screen reading fatigues not only my eyes but also my brain too quickly. i like to know where i’m at in a book by just looking at it, and to not be distracted by the rest of the entire internet while i’m reading. also my right eye twitches if i read on a screen for very long. don’t have to worry about making sure a book is charged before i sit down with it, either. also, i like the way books look on a shelf. i’m a collector of all kinds of things so part of the enjoyment for me is having the physical object to keep, even if i never look at it again.
i’m not anti-e-reading at all, it’s just not for me.
@jerk_nugget I love books too but ebooks are easier on my hands. Once I picked up a Kindle I stopped reading print. The e-ink type readers (Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite) last for maybe a month on a charge, and most people don’t have a screen fatigue problem with them. Have you tried one? They look pretty much like a book page. Plus I can throw my Paperwhite in a zip-loc bag, light my candles, turn off the lights, and take a bubble bath while I read. Sometimes chocolate is involved (sometimes candy corn).
I have a friend that sends me books for my birthday. I put them on a shelf and get the ebook from the library.
@sammydog01
My Kindle and e-books together have allowed me to free up some necessary physical space. And to assist in the pursuit of the idea of owning fewer physically things.
Even given as much as I love books, I do not want my existence to become merely a rabbit-warren of bookshelves.
Agreed, a well designed e-ink reader is very easy in the eyes.
@f00l Oh, yeah, I also turn up the font size a bit. Try that on a paperback.
I too like the feel of a book in my hands. I like seeing where something is on a page and being able to find that place again (if I need to) by remembering where I saw it on that page. I have a kindle and the e-ink is easy on the eyes but it’s just not the same as curling up with a paper book to me. As a matter of fact, I’m on my 3rd kindle. The usb charging port has broken on every single one. And no… I don’t abuse them. Sister’s did the same thing as did granddaughter’s.
@lseeber
If you are good with the Kindle models without built in lighting, you can get older Kindles very cheaply (well under $30) from eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon warehouse.
I am very fond of the Kindle 2, the Kindle Keyboard, and the Kindle Touch.
All also can play mp3 files. They come with headphone jacks.
They all do rather nice Text-To-Speech.
No Bluetooth in them, but you can use a third party Bluetooth dongle if you want to use Bluetooth headphones.
I don’t know of these play audible does. Never tried.
The brand new Kindle Oasis 2 is waterproof, plays audible files, prob does TTS (did not look this up), and works with Bluetooth headphones.
But sticker shock there!
I hope Amazon will add Bluetooth and audible/audiobook compatibility to future Kindle Paperwhite versions.
But audiobooks/audible play very nicely on Android and iOS, so perhaps there is little need.
@f00l I’ve had the old and the new. They have their place but I prefer an actual book.
I prefer one physical book over a single e-book, but, in general, 40 e-books are better than 40 physical books.
I primarily read eBooks, but hard-copies still have their place.
Things that I miss about books being the “normal” way to read
@DrWorm
YES.
Thx.
Books can be great gifts. I think this may be a decent starting criteria.
@InnocuousFarmer Trade paperbacks are my preferred format. Lighter weight and more comfortable to hold than a hardback, but with the larger print, higher quality printing, fancy chapter headers and illustrations you get with a hardback. About 10% of them have this silky soft cover that feels almost like cloth, and those are the most enjoyable to spend time with. I’ve been reading a trilogy of +/-1,000 page paperbacks I was loaned, and hand fatigue is an issue, along with wear and tear due to the thickness of the spine. Im putting more wear than I’d prefer on a borrowed item.
@InnocuousFarmer While I am going to give you a big thumbs up on the following sentiment
I am going to disagree with you on the following point:
I have encountered kids (some my own, some nieces and nephews) where a book would be their absolute favorite gift. But like you mentioned, you have to know your recipient and just because they were that way last year, doesn’t me they still feel that way.
@DrWorm Fair enough. I was talking about my experiences with children generally, but mostly about myself. I had this story about how I was an ungrateful dick when I was a kid, even though I liked reading and I got a book that was a thoughtful gift. Decided it was too wordy and not a good story.
I guess my main point wasn’t that every child would prefer not to get a book, but that children would more often surprise you by wanting shiny plastic baubles, or whatever, even when a book would be an objectively better gift from their perspective.
@DrWorm I just gave a 4 yr, 3 yr, and 18 mo a book each. I had to read them over and over. The 4 year old said he loved his book because it was funny. He then took the 3 yr old’s book, had me read it to him several times and then started to tell me a far more elaborate story, turning the pages one by one. There is something with a physical book that you just can’t replace with an electronic one.
@DrWorm Agreed. My grandchildren LOVE getting books. As long as it is books that are chosen for them and their personal reading habits. I do get them toys anyway but that’s because of me… not them. They ask for the books. They are 14, 12 and 6.
@InnocuousFarmer
Not this former child.
Well, “allegedly former child”. Some persons claim that the condition persists.
But then I was giving away books because had run out of room for them by junior high.
My friends sometimes got annoyed with me; they would invite me over, I would get fascinated by a book, and sit down and read something.
Mr parents made me stop doing that. The deal was, I would allowed to look at other people’s books. Then if I wanted something, i made a note, and parents world try to get it from the library or ILL, so long as I stopped being rude to my friends.
@f00l The more I think about it, and having read the replies in this thread (I think I may have noticed a pattern
), the more I doubt my recollection of my own childhood. Maybe I preferred reading by nature, or maybe books were the only entertainment I was allowed to have (relatively) free access to. I wouldn’t want to make a wager.
I don’t really recall any of my friends having books… I was more prone to getting recommendations and lent paperbacks from adults at the church my family went to. I do remember going through a decent number of library books, routinely not hearing people talking to me while reading (parents loved that), and occasionally reading adult books that went at least half over my head… I had a longer attention span, back then, but had no problem blowing past passages without grokking them, or for that matter finishing a book and not remembering its contents a week later.
In any case, I’m happy to be wrong.
@InnocuousFarmer
The current electronic toys for kids are really immersive. Game systems etc.
I can’t really imagine kids preferring books to those, the kids who preferred books might be kinda uncommon.
I dont think gaming (modern usage) is bad per se. Fun. Develop some skills. All that.
But way overdone. addictive or habituating. Wait way way over-chosen and over-preferred by many kids. Given the time cost and closed-off universe of very limited choices and demands, compared to “life”.
And while some skills get developed, other skills languish or are neglected. Such as, fitness, reading, comprehending difficult things in prose, trad sports, stuff that involves cooperating f2f, family activities, being outdoors, being patient in things that involves others, doing things with physical tools or your hands, true creativity, building real stuff, etc.
If I had young kids, I wonder what my attitude about gaming would be.
When I was young (“get off my lawn!”
), as we grew up, our activities usually or often seemed to involve increasingly complex and adult demands and social interactions. Even rock and roll and the counterculture involved a lot of that, often enough. Real life and stuff.
Increasingly complex tech and media consumption, and gaming, seems to cut one off from, and isolate one to a degree, from the social and responsibility demands of adult life in a manner different from the stuff I remember doing. Fine if not overdone.
I can see modern kids not wanting books in nearly the way I and some of my friends did. So many sophisticated media complete for their attention.
In the way that millennials don’t understand complex prose the way we commonly did growing up.
The way people wrote common letters and notes used to resemble the quality of printed prose essays from that time.
Spelling, punctuation, etc fell apart in the 80’s/90’s as kids grew up with computers and keyboards and access to online.
Typed prose online migrated to the “lol” variety. Nothing wrong with that. Perhaps. I just lament the deterioration and rarity of “the rest of it”.
Not intended as a “things were better when” bitch. Things change. Language and communication customs migrate.
Tho I do wonder about the relationship between the changes in communication styles and depth/complexity/reflectiveness of expressed thought, and the changes in the craziness of the current public social/political environments.
There are so many SF stories about how the species kinda destroys itself be being clever, but not truly intelligent.
Are we “living” such an event now?
(I can still spell, but not when using a swipe keyboard, and I’m hopeless proofreading my own stuff, and I use a swipe kb because I’m lazy.
Re punctuation, the rules are slipping out of my brain, since no one except a few people over age 45 seems to care about it anyway.
Besides, my memory sucks.)
*“get off my lawn!”.
@f00l I am haunted by the notion that all the bitching old people are correct, and that generationally lowered expectations are the way of the world. I thought there was a term for that, maybe a Wikipedia page. I can’t find it, now.
I suppose it works both ways, though, morphing ideas of what is normal. There’s the recency of, say, women’s suffrage, versus the gut feeling (from my recently grown gut) that it’d be insane for that to be a question, nevermind a question given the opposite answer.
I bet there are a more than a couple shoes yet to drop as the species struggles to keep up with the rate of changes technical, cultural/political, economic, and natural. I look forward to a period when this has all settled down a little, when the counter-counter-counter-reactions have played out. I could imagine (this might be wildly optimistic) people being better at parsing the distinction between media and information, “what-if” stories and knowledge; and people being more mindful of the already old maxim about textual communication lacking a great deal of information, in tone, emphasis, body language (and now, any social context whatsoever — age, status, job, relationship — any sense of who you’re talking to and why they’re talking). I wonder if the old days of text being less of a direct attempt at representation of verbal communication (the milleniums and their abysmal use of exclamation marks), and more of its own communication technology, helped with that kind of thing.
All the social justice stuff seems in full-on witch hunt mode currently, but maybe human nature is such that overreaction is the only kind of reaction available. It’s much better that than nothing, still, assuming it all settles down a little, in time (as opposed to indefinite continued escalation from both… err… (sides?)). Or, maybe it’s more what you were alluding to, that the culture rests mainly with people who lack the skills to avoid overreacting.
About the generational decline in writing skills, I have noticed that the genre fiction that I sometimes read is better written than the free mass-targeted Kindle books from Amazon. I wonder if that means anything. I’ve stopped looking at Amazon’s free books, because I’m not interested in most of them, and the ones that might be fun, content-wise, have… really bad prose. I’m not (even remotely) well read. I’m not that picky. The writing is terrible.
Hmm. This is what happens when I try to reply before drinking coffee. I wanted to talk about isolation and videogames. I have thought about isolation a bit… Maybe next time, then.
@InnocuousFarmer
A few years back amazon has lots of free books that were decent. Kindle rankings rewarded that in various ways. So self/published quality writers used this.
Then amazon changed the algorithms. Now the only thing that makes sense for a decent writer who can actually sell a book, is to do something like make a 1st book in a series, or related novella, free, as a taste.
Otherwise be wary of free books that aren’t classics. And check reviews.
@InnocuousFarmer
In the old days of letter writing, people often had the courtesy to introduce themselves, and the wit to give reasonable context. And people were not so pressured for time and instancy, they were perhaps more willing to understand the whole.
Taking the time to understand was, in my experience, a virtue.
And rudeness was less tolerated on many, but not all, topics.
“Civilized” and unjustifiable patronising and insulting remarks about entire groups of people went on a lot tho.
It was better is some ways, bit hardly wonderful.
And black/white thinking good/evil self-righteous thinking was all over the place, at least in my landscape while growing up.
Some witch hunting is socially rewarded within various groups, at the moment.
And the things seems to be, among some, that trolling and misrepresentation are virtues. Including from some huge outlets.
Among others who intend to speak and think well, who may have been marginalized in the past, there is a sometimes huge intellectual overreach. A failure to understand other POVs. A failure to listen. A failure to moderate to a degree. Those us understandable perhaps but we must get past it.
failure to understand that often many on “another side” are suffering from bad social situations and setups similar to one’s own.
And the most insane voices are rewarded with massive attention and with sucking all the oxygen out of the room. And getting speaking gigs and book deals.
And a failure of the culture at large to learn or try to understand how and what a political or historical truth is. And what is merely a spin and a questionable grievance or partisan engineering.
So much of the news engine has been taken over by social, by the art of attack, fake it, spin it.
And outlets that don’t practice extreme spin are often exercising potential “bias by omission.”. They may not fake attacks. They may try for excellence. But they are often not actually dealing openly with what news and political objectivity might be. So these outlets, even of they are pretty solid, just leave themselves open to attack. And if they did even far better, trolls would still be trying to destroy them by whatever means.
Dishonest people get book contacts and visibility. Honest people, or people who try for honesty, get an instant attempt to discredit. Not constructive criticism. Outright lies, misinformation, spin well beyond rationality.
And if the outlets who attempt solid journalism did deal with the topic of “what is news objectivity”, it would instantly be co-opted, spun, and taken over by the trolls.
And where is the genuine discussion among people who talk like adults, not just fake it, troll it, or stick to the checklist of talking points?
(cnn panels are near useless because it’s all pre-scripted talking points. A few exceptions there. But basically you hear this POV you already know. And then that POV you already know. Waste of time.)
I sometimes wonder if we are going to destroy ourselves much faster than I ever thought possible.
To not head in that direction means, among other things, that the parties have to stop yelling outright lies or lies by omission. Starting with the economy I would think, since the economy drives a lot of the online lying and other outrage.
Right now the talk by politicians about the economy tends to be either flat out lying or very shallow. There are exceptions.
Then the “culture wars”. That seemed e to be a matter of “are we as a society going to grow up? Or not?”.
Luke recognizing that sometimes real problems have gone unrecognized and should be addressed. That trollers can and should be ignored until they stop trolling.
That people have to really listen across the divides. That the proposed “solutions” which might not fix anything and might make things worse. That things are complicated and responding primarily to feel-good slogans just allow someone else to take advantage of you.
That the real likely cost of solutions must be addressed. The there is virtue in the center, in bipartisan negotiations, in regular order, in civility, in getting to know people will across the political devide, in finding common ground, and in talking through problems like adults.
That the conduct of very large and very powerful organizations should be examined. That the average person and average consumer needs a great deal of transparency, or the person can function at best, only as a somewhat victim in some areas.
That partisan slogans tend not to be models for solving things. And not for telling the trusth.
That we are almost certainly handing and have handed much of the economic, military, and technical power of the future to China and we aren’t even addressing that.
(both parties seriously at fault. Current admin doesn’t understand there is a prob, apparently).
All our social issues will look very very different when we are begging China for a spot at the cool kids table and hoping they will say “yes”.
How long do we have before it’s obvious we are not number 1? 20 Years? 5 years? It will be fast, if things go at the current rate.
China’s leadership may be “quasi limited free market info-control fascists”.
They have serious vulnerabilities. but they are not children. If we continue to be politically idiotic, how do we compete with them?
And when (in this scenario) china has gone ahead, there may be very little liklihoid we will ever catch up. Ever.
Any idea of how many engineers they have? How many coders? economists? Security experts? How many businesspersons? How good those are?
Are their young discouraged from being trained to the very highest level of technical competency due to the incredible debt costs, as is often the case here?
My thinking is that china will try to do whatever it takes to dominate us technologically and economically. Whatever the short term cost.
And we are handing them the means. Even if they got no tech from us, out insane and dishonest political discourse is itself enough to give them the advantage.
The last century was the “American century”. Right now it doesn’t look like the current century will be anything close to that.
As for whether we as a culture will grow up? Or grow up in time to stop throwing away so much? I really have no sense of the answer to that.
Apologies for rant. I have to go do something else with my brain now. This got longer than I intended.
: p.
@InnocuousFarmer @f00l My first jobs as a teenager were apprenticing under my mom, who was an accountant. One of the most valuable things she taught me was to never use a calculator unless I already knew the answer. Sum the numbers in my head and check them with the 10 key. I can’t even guess how much money it has saved me at the checkout knowing what my total should be and catching cash register errors. When I taught grant writing for nonprofits I tried to impress a parallel wisdom, to never use spell check as a substitute for proper spelling and grammar. Grant writing need not be impeccable, but it must certainly be comprehensible. I was frankly embarrassed by the low literacy level and lack of competency displayed in most of the grant applications we received, most of them written by professionals with high levels of educational attainment. It used to make me genuinely angry, as our community tends to be consistently underfunded by state and national grantors. Children and old people go to bed hungry in our city because the PhDs at our nonprofits can’t be bothered to construct proper sentences made up of the intended words or fill out forms completely.
@f00l Ah yeah, I meant the temporarily free books that were (I presume) intended to be exchanged for money most of the time. The “Kindle First”, renamed to “Amazon First Reads” thing. It’s one of the Prime benefits.
Heh, that was a long rant.
I’m still holding out hope for some memes (common wisdom, not image macros) to emerge, that can allow partisans (I’m thinking of people who’ve been, as I see it, ensorcelled by propaganda) to see a world that’s full of relatable others, and a world wherein a political spectrum doesn’t have a centerline that, when crossed, turns a fellow citizen into an enemy… can’t imagine how that could come about, though. Internalized righteous indignation is a kind of cancer. It’s hard to challenge directly, as you tend to wind up challenging people’s sense of identity, which provokes a strong reaction. I think visible, working examples would go a long way. Can’t point to any, of course…
I see China’s dominance as a foregone conclusion. They have so many more people. I can’t imagine how broken the world would have to be for that disproportionately large population to not catch up, and supersede the US’s, eventually, in wealth, and then in everything that follows from wealth. Of course, the implications of that happening under the jurisdiction of their particular single party is disturbing. (Did you know that China’s military is under the control of the party, rather than the state? I learned that a few days ago.)
E-books are great but for certain text-books, and especially shop manuals, physical is still the way to go.
I love books. I hit up HPB every weekend just looking for something interesting to read or add to my “someday” list.
I’ve been totally digital for books since 2011, and I don’t miss physicals at all. But I’m about as far from sentimental as one can get, so I don’t care about the scent or feel or experience of reading; it’s data transfer, so it should be as efficient as possible.
My Kindle Paperwhite:
It also keeps a centralized, searchable, backed up copy of all highlights and comments in every book I’ve ever read on the platform, accessible from any computer or smartphone. And when I get the next version, all these features go along with it automatically.
From a purely pragmatic perspective, I just don’t see the case for them, so a physical book would be a bad gift for me. But I have many friends who admit they are sentimental about it in some way, so there are many people for whom it would still be a good gift.
@Kabn
E-books also move the market toward monopolization the selling and distribution of books.
And then, after the Great Electronic Pulse, persons with physical libraries will be with rich, and have knowledge, power, and valuable sets of facts, data, history, attitudes and beliefs, personal histories, possibities, methods; or the book owners will be prey, for their property.
It’s just Data Transfer. Persistence of possibility even after the grid goes dark.
Consequences. Hmmmm.
I tend to use both.
@Kabn
other than efficiency, what about data decay once information has been transferred to your head? I find that 1) the type of text and 2) my needs of the text determines how i read.
I usually have an ebook, a physical book, and an audio book that i’m in the middle of. I would know less if I limited myself to my kindle. As time passes, the kindle has become more of a gimmick compared to my phone… at this point it is just an irrational sunk cost bias (kindles are overpriced and it irritates me) i’m slowly disabusing myself of
I used to enjoy my kindle, but now i use google books, it is always on me (phone) and i can better mark up my page as well as access my notes from my book. I feel as if the Kindle actively discourages me from interacting with my text. Fine if i want to take a data dump, but it isn’t useful if I need to grok the text.
I use ebooks for linear reading of texts with simple information. The more complex the text, the less likely I am to use an ebook.
I use audio books for similar info dumps. At 3x speed i can tolerate or enjoy text i wouldn’t be able to read via dead trees. Also, i can’t read while driving, but i can absorb information, so i usually have an audio book queued up.
A physical book is best when I need to play with the information to make it my own. This could include flipping back and forth btw diagrams, or organizing my thoughts with different symbols and colors of ink (if the uniball jetstream 4n1 shows up on meh, i know i’ll bite)
I also use the spatial separation of physical pages as a means of organizing my thoughts. What comes first? where does this idea fit into the text?
I use ebooks for non-fiction what i want to compile and easily access, but i don’t need to remember the details… books like “Vital Question” by Nick lane. Packed with info, and the details matter, but i’ll remembered them without an easy to check source.
I save audiobooks for things like “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” which is entertaining but I don’t think will serve me later on (idk if it has a biblio in the back, but if so, the better for me not to need the book to access the sources).
There are some ebooks i would swtich to audiobook if the audiobooks were cheaper.
Note, none of this has to do with sentimentality. If amazon didn’t use their monopoly power to push a crappy device, i am guessing that i could be using a slim, water proof, 4 color eink device right now i could easily mark up. My hunch is that the marketing dept is saving that for a few years out, bleeding margins from customers b/c they have excellent intel on what customer’s will pay.
@shopshop
Idk if e-book readers are overpriced re hardware. I thought they were subsidized, to drive monopolistic book sales, but am uneducated re the economics of the e-book distributor industry.
I own a number vintage kindles and other e-readers, because I find them to be lovely and intriguing.
The aesthetics of the readers are quite apart from the aesthetics of a book as physical object, or as a designed text.
Like you, I use my phone a lot. I hadn’t tried Google books much. Must do so.
And I always have an audiobook or three going, and thousands of unplayed podcasts. Like you, I speed them up as much as I can tolerate. I can’t listen to npr or watch the news much anymore. No speed controls.
And again apart are the real personal wonderments: What happens when those words and thoughts enter my head.
I used to be bothered by the content-in-brain-info-decay you mentioned. Far less so now.
Due to personal habits and my concentrations in reading, my younger self was busy trying to make and comprehend as “subtly but rigorousy defined absolutes” just about everything.
But I rather gave the intensity of the practice up somewhat after looking harder at words/language/thoughts in themselves.
Text-reading is always a sampling of possibly meanings. Even in math. Esp in math, from a certain perspective?
And we have only our biological brains, not a fantasy or SF Supermind. Or so it appears to me, regarding mine, at present.
So I let the information decay proceed without great grief. And simply try to do something with the gain incurred by reading those words, that text, that layout. One’s mind inhaling that set of coded possibilities offered to me by another.
Telepathy of a sort can occur, given access to a book. Or a letter or manuscript. Or a library.
…
…
From
In Memory Of W.B. Yeats
WH Auden
@f00l I used to play a role playing game called Aftermath, a post-holocaust setting. The two most valuable things a person could own were a reloader that matched your gun so you could make your own bullets, and books on how to actually do things. My character was the sole survivor in a Magnificent Seven style story wherein we were defending a librarian and his pretty daughter in an intact public library, and ended up marrying the daughter and settling down.
@moondrake Awe, I just love a happy ending. Congratulations to you both!
This is a little beside the “gift” issue, but for me the strongest argument for physical books is that you can buy them used. One friend of mine went fully over to the kindle, but that means he has to buy all his (non public domain) books from Amazon. I buy most of my books from used bookstores and library sales. He spends a few hundred a month, I spend maybe 40.
@lifftchi That goes with the resale aspect too. It’s legal to lend or resell a book (or any physical media like a DVD, CD, tape, etc.). It’s not legal with a digital copy.
That is why corporations want to do away with physical media. Low distribution costs + eliminating the legal used market “competition” = more profits.
@lifftchi You can borrow e-books at the library and they return themselves- no late fees ever.
@sammydog01 I had a girlfriend like that once.
@therealjrn Damn, that must have been convenient.
@narfcake
There are some arrangements being made for the inheritability of personal libraries of e-media licenses.
However, I don’t think thess licenses can be xferred during the purchaser’s lifetime.
My personal recommendation for someone who hasn’t picked up a book in 3 or more years is “Tales from Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffet. I feel he is a better author than songwriter.
It isn’t highbrow, but it is a quick fun read.
@rtjhnstn
/giphy Grieving
Whether or not to by a real book depends on 2 things: the recipient and the book.
I’m on my 5th e-reader (only one did I break), had a Sony e-ink, got the first Nook Color and never looked back. Have thousands of books there and still a fair number of real ones. I thought the transition would be difficult, but it wasn’t. I get my public domain books anywhere I want and can side load them. (Go BN!)
I have and still do treasure some real books. I rarely get them as gifts anymore, but those that I do, are ones that I want in that form, and are often work related. That and some books that are not pleasure reading.
But I give books, especially to a friend or two who has never been able to make the adjustment.
@Cerridwyn The 1st book I read on a tablet was “The girl with the dragon tattoo” trilogy. All 3 volumes took me 5 days.
@rtjhnstn I have all three sitting on a shelf that I bought in mint condition. I guess I need to read them.
Especially because I happen to be a girl with a dragon tattoo.
@RiotDemon
This series rocks. You would like.
Even if we overlook the ‘sentimental benefits’ of physical books, we can still find a particular set of advances in compression with e - books. I thing that is much easier to enter in the reading flow (to ‘get into the book’) while reading physical, rather than an electronic book.
Reason for that likely lies in the fact that our eyes and brain find much more natural (thus less stressful) to read from paper than from computer screens. Also, there is significantly bigger pressure from distracters in context of reading an e - book from some computer device.
However, the e - books (and electronic material in general) also have their advances, such as easier and faster storage, searching and sharing.
During my life I’ve read plenty of both physical and e - books, and I could say that benefits of physical books are most significant in the context of complex pieces, and also the ones which require ‘full attention’ to reading the content (such as some fiction novels, some relatively abstract contents…). On the other side, e - materials are more appropriate for more simple contents or ones that are supposed to be read shallowly and/or selectively (such as technical documentation, manuals, short articles…).
Therefore, I’d say that physical book (under the assumption that is appropriate and interesting for receiver :)) can be a wonderful present. Especially if the receiver also possesses ‘sentimental bond’ to that kind of medium.
But key thing is that one must have in mind that the CONTENT of the book is the main thing which will (or won’t) give value to the gift
@jseaman
One benefit of e-books is that, with e-books, when my Uncle picks up my suitcase (for a weeks stay) to load it, he didn’t do it and several other suitcases on his sandaled feet, and then accidentally swear loudly at the weight (in front of young children); and ask if I am carrying a suitcase of “compressed matter” …
Being a teenager at the time, I cheerfully gave a smartass reply.
“No, just compressed ideas.”.
He stopped himself from swearing a second time.
/giphy "compressed ideas"
@f00l heh
Every time I see a favorite kids’ book in e-book form- like Curious George, it makes me sad. Picture books should be on paper. If I need a baby shower gift I always find some Boynton board books.
@PolkSaladAnnie, how have you not weighed in on this?
@Pantheist I didn’t know I needed to explain the value of an actual, physical book to this bunch, but, I suppose, especially since I’ve found myself in an especially reflective, especially intoxicated state, I could relate some of the benefits of keeping a library and gifting books to others.
Firstly, books used to be seen as treasures. They were expensive and rare. A lot of hard work went into them. Having a library, or, honestly, having access to information or entertainment, was a rare thing. It wasn’t a chore or an obligation, it was an honor. It was something a person could do to benefit one’s family for many generations to come.
In today’s world, where we have access to so much information, cultivating a true library is an art form. One must sample many of the world’s literary delicacies and perhaps learn to specialize in a few in order to build something worth our time and worth the notice of others.
More importantly, we learn more about ourselves through literature. A great man once told me “We do not write because we have the answers, we write to find them.” I believe this to be true, but I think it also applies to the things we read. We search for things that resonate with us and, more often than not, we find that in the written word.
In terms of gift giving, which I believe to be an emotional act, the books we love reveal something deeply personal about ourselves or those for whom we care. Books speak to our souls and so, when we decide to give a book as a gift, it is like giving a small part of oneself to someone else. Perhaps you’re trying to explain yourself to someone else or you believe that the book will send a beneficial message. The book may also simply be one that you think the recipient will enjoy, either way, it shows reflection and awareness.
While many may overlook the thoughtfulness, the passion, the meaning behind the gift of a book, I think it is one of the most intimate and meaningful gifts a person could give and one of the most memorable one could receive.
Edits are forthcoming. This is just a first blurt.
@Pantheist
Damn.
You got a good one.
@PolkSaladAnnie
I would love to be only a spirit at times.
And sometimes, would have some book-loving, non-physical essence of myself be free to slip into residences of book lovers, when no one is home, being there unseen, unheard, unremarked? No trace. Just to look at the books. Nothing else.
For those decades of my life during which persons actually visited each other’s residences, if the books were visible, I would aim straight at them, if I could do so without being rude.
And I would rest my eyes a little on each title, head turned slightly sideways.
If the books spilled all over the house, so much the better. This took time, and disrupted other expected purposes. But …
The larger the residence’s library, the less likely the host to mind my indulgence. We would ask questions about books never seen before. Speak of our loves.
And so often this thread weaved into a full cloth of conversation that carried us for hours.
For so many people I liked, books were everywhere in their homes.
So when I behaved in this way; they understood. They forgave.
Decades later; still grateful.
@f00l I know it.
@f00l I tend to gravitate towards a book collection when I see one, too. When I was a teenager, I used to judge my friends by their bookshelves. Whenever I would go to someone’s house for the first time, I would go directly to their bookcase. This was how I determined whether or not the person was going to be a good friend for me.
No one really understood what I was doing until one day, my friend and I went to someone else’s house. I had never been there, so I went right to their bookcase and started reading the titles. When I looked up, my friend was looking at me, smiling in her sly sort of way.
“What?” I asked her, a little embarrassed.
“I just love watching you look at someone’s books while you silently judge them.”
I had been found out. She and I were very close for a long time.
@PolkSaladAnnie
I never turned down or thought less of friendship, or less of anyone, if they had few books, or had books that excited me less (that I recall). It just meant we didn’t share those fascinations. And prob would never have those sorts of conversations.
There are what, 7-8 billion plus of us? Also almost each human with multiple friends, each friendship individualized?
I’m down with that.
But common and shared wonder at written words and literature can add infinite dimensions to the areas of life and thought and experience included in the friendship.
This does not make some friendships 'better" or “worse” to me. They each have their qualities.
Some of the finest, most generous, most constant, most empathetic and forgiving people I know barely read books. Some of these people possess great intelligence, apparently infinite personal goodness, and we share a great depth of trust.
I have close friends who barely read books, with whom I share a life of experiences, a community, or other shared interests.
So it’s all cool.
But I still want to look at everyone’s books. And if I see ones that get my strong interest, there’s a whole world of potential shared exploration.
Instant potential resonance.
And I admit this: when I meet someone who is excited about the books I love, or is excited by the books or the conceptual areas that fascinate me, esp if they speak of the subject matters in ways that make me want to listen carefully: that’s kinda my idea of a serious personal lottery win.
/giphy "lucky day"
@PolkSaladAnnie
Just remembered something.
My SIL is as smart as anytime else in the family. But her family of origin is perhaps a little less “obsessed” or something.
Note, we are not a great family of intellectuals or anything. But when my SIL went to a house belonging to one of my cousins recently for the first time, she wandered around, and then came back to her hubby (my esteemed younger brother), me, and two of my cousins.
She smiled, sighed, and said, cheerfully,
“Your family and all of your books! Every house! Every time! Every single time!”
She never got to see my Always-Right Grandmother’s house (the house I remember from early childhood), filled to the brim with stacks and stacks of American and European history, political history and philosophy, and printed copies if the Congressional Record. Several rooms in the house held nothing else.
Always-Right Grandmother, an unrepentant far-right conservative, used to read and recite from memory constantly to us when we were pre-kindergarten.
Kipling. Tennyson (who I barely remember). AA Milne. L Frank Baum. The Declaration Of Independence. Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Edmund Burke. Other stuff.
We used to tease and torment her constantly when she did this, pointing out lots of “obvious communist influence” everywhere in literature (she was seriously mono-topic-anti-communiist) We just made up conspiracies in order to mess with her.
She knew we were teasing her. She did not mind. She just helped us make all these “invented and imaginary threats to western culture and freedom” more and more fabulous and SF; all part of the ongoing joke.
@f00l While I read almost exclusively actual paper books, and read constantly, I’m afraid you wouldn’t find my library to be very enlightening. I keep only a handful of books, and give away, donate or trade all the rest. Consequently my personal library consists only of the 20 or so books I have stacked up waiting for my attention, perhaps 50 books that are old favorites that I reread often, and perhaps another 50 waiting for disposition. For someone with a life-long reading habit that’s a paltry library indeed.
@moondrake
I’m doing as you, more and more.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to look when someone has lots of physical books tho.