In a message dated 11/13/2004 3:37:14 PM Mountain Standard Time,
shalesller@writeme.com writes:
>>You
>>told us we
couldn't find a quote in a large body of text, >>you tell
us
>>that typeface is important when no printed book cares,
>>you complain
>>that an ebook in Courier is hard to read,
which is a bit >>like saying
>>that it's hard to read this
book because it's upside >>down.
Right on. I loathe Courier, so I don't read my ebooks in Courier; I read
them on the computer in Times New Roman, and I read them on my ebook reader in
Arial, because that's the default. I could change it if I wanted to.
As for books to read in bed . . . well, good people, I have wonderful
news for you. A version of the Rocket has been revived. FictionWise now has
one available for $99 and is actively working on newer versions. Go here
for more information:
>> Again- the people on this list
are computer savvy. My mother isn't. My students are limited. None
of them have ebook readers. They are not going to spend $99 to read a
book, especially one that isn't new.. And lots of people read paper
books in bed- and would prefer one over an ebook that will cost them $99 to
read, and has a limited number of options. I can go to my local library
and get any number of books for free, and curl up in bed with them. I
can order even more through interlibrary loan, and get them in a matter of
days. I can get new ones and old ones, of my own choice, in a variety of
editions- not just what someone has chosen to put on the net. I can get
books with illustrations in color or black and white. A book like Alice
in Wonderland can be read in versions that contain illos by Rackham, Tenniel,
or more modern illustrators- and the books are usually large enough for me to
share with a child. For instance, i love childre's books- I was in a store
today and read through several by Chris Van Allsburg. I'm sorry I
didn't get to the store earlier- he was signing books. i would have
bought one for him to sign. I don't think he signs books on
machines.
Why do I like paper? I don't need
batteries or electricity. All I need is sunlight or a candle. I
can pack a book in plastic and come back 20 years later to find it in working
order- the technology won't have changed. In 100 years I'll be able to
read it too, in many cases.
I can't read books I once downloaded to 5"
floppies. Soon, I won't be able to read books downloaded to 3"
floppies. I can't load books to some earlier versions of ebooks. I
can however read paper books without having to change the typeface myself, and
I can carry them with me anywhere. I don't read twenty books at once. I
read one. And I can glance ahead, go back, look at he page next to the
one I'm reading, put the book down next to another book and compare the
information in the two without having to spend $198, and a whole lot of other
things.
In NYC where I live, we are in love with
technology. We have one of the oldest subway systems. WiFi is very
popular among the upper middle classes. We pretty much all carry cellular
phones and use them constantly. We live for our iPods and mp3 players.
We are wired to the max- and in the subway, on the street and in cafes, we
read paper books and paper magazines and paper tabloids. And we don't
even have to change the type or pay a class-separating $99 for the right to
read. When my local Barnes and Noble was selling ebooks here a few years ago,
people in this high tech city, in the shadow of what was then Silicon Alley-
very few sold. I look forward to the OQO and some of Sony's new products, but
pay $99 to have the right to read old Tom Swift books with no pictures and not
even the enticing smell that old books have? When the machine you talk
about can't carry the texts I actually need on a regular basis, because I'm an
academic? When pretty much all the fun books I love are only in paper form,
and have pictures and other temptations to boot??
Good Lord, woman, what on earth do you
read? Are you honestly saying that every book you will ever want to read
is on a computer? That every book you love is usually out of print and
copyright, or is on the level of John Grisham? Are you truly saying that
you think the best version of Treasure Island in on a machine, and not between
the pages of a book with color illustrations by NC Wyeth? Are you saying
that you never look at art books, cookbooks, science books? That you only read
popular literature and authors who have been dead for about a century? That
the latest information about Africa or Asia was written in 1910?
I have a couple of first editions by
anthropologists. None of the ones I have are online. They smell
musty. I know that somewhere along the line, another anthopologist loved
those books like I love them. Not just the words- the books. They
have marginalia. The fact that they are marked up makes me love them all the
more. One day I will die and someone else will love my books and see the
comments I made. They will know what I read- not only the book they will
hold, but other books I mentioned i the marginalia. I will be putting a
message in a bottle that will turn up in the future. I have other books
that are used copies from academic bookstores- the margins told me what
Professor So-and-so thought was important to his students. The notes
helped me get through grad school. I made my own notes, sole the books,
and passed them on. I cannot pass on a $99 machine. The individual books help
the people who need them. A machine can only be held by one person and
the data can be lost.
I have a cookbook that belonged to my
mother-in-law, now senile, that she gave to my husband, now dead. It has
notes from all three of us, and stains from our cooking. I sometimes
take it to bed with me, to check recipes the day before a holiday meal.
You must think I'm mad to love a physical book that I will pass down to some
relative of mine, who will know from which pages were stained the most what
the best recipes are. There are thumb-prints all over it, and it smells
vaguely of milk- it holds my favorite quiche recipe. I have another book
that is made up of xeroxes and has illustrations on how exactly to prepare
certain medieval recipes. The illustrations are important to me. i
can hod that and take it to bed, too.
When NY lost the Twin Towers a few years
ago, i thought of what I would take with me if we were ever bombed and I could
get out. My computer was not on the list. I thought of things I could
use without a battery or any outside power. In an emergency, I could use my
cookbook and read Alice in Wonderland, so I would take them along with a pot
and some matches.So--you want a good look at the future of ebooks?
Brothers and sisters, it's here. Of course technology will improve. It is the
job of technology to improve. But every time it does, there will be a
sufficient span of time for PG and its descendants to change the filing system
into one that can remain readable. <<
Someone used the example of Beowulf. Uh, yeah. That's a good one. I can't
possibly read it in its original language, but I can read it in my original
language whenever I want it. Some people find Chaucer unreadable. I don't, but
I'm glad it's available in modern English for people who can read it only that
way.
>>It's available in modern English
in book form. A good modern translation is by Seamus
Heaney. The original text is reprinted, for those of us who
want to check accuracy. <<
After all, you can't understand Shakespeare unless you read him in the
original Klingon.
>>You can- if you're educated.
Plenty of people understand Shakespeare. Even high school
students. People in Italy can read Shakespeare. Tiny children can also-
they could at the beginning of this century. My badly-educated, at-risk
high school students were able to understand Shakespeare. If you don't,
that says more about you than it does about early modern English. And some of
us can even parse Beowulf- with a two-language version (which is how it's
usually printed) the average person can read an amazing amount of it in the
original, or at least grasp it.
Maybe if you stopped reading Star Trk
novels as literature, you'd realize you read Shakespeare's language pretty
much every day. His turns of phrase are used all the time, and can be
understood by people of all economic level who have the desire to read an
learn- even people who cannot affor $99 ebooks to read Stephen King novels
(not theat Stephen King is bad, but there's more to reading than
that).<<
Anne