Wednesday 10 August 2011

Books don't run out of batteries

I recently let Apple try to explain to me why their e-books are A Good Thing and not An Awful Thing. I've seen these iPads. They look fancy. I mean, I would have no actual use for one, but they're really shiny. The adverts show all kinds of wonders. Listening to a magazine. Watching a newspaper. And, I don't know, eating a book? When you download one it goes onto a virtual bookshelf. Which is nice. It almost looks like a real bookshelf. But then you open one up, and this is where it all goes wrong for me. Apple boast about the advantages over paper. You can change the font and text size. Highlight hard words to look them up in a dictionary. Go straight to the page you were last on, because the machine remembered it for you. But I don't want to customise books. I don't want to change them. A book is a solid thing that has been designed and produced and exists in the world as an object. It can't be changed. Books don't have to loaded. They don't run out of batteries. In telling us that an e-book is just like a real-book, they've forgotten the most important thing. A piece of data in a machine is not really there. You can't hold it. You can't keep it. I bet it doesn't even smell of anything.

There is a possiblity I am being grumpy. This is, obviously, what happened to music. People who bought records can now scroll through iTunes. And in some ways, it's better. Having all your music two clicks away. That's good. I download music, but I've noticed a difference. If I really like an album, I'll buy it on CD. So I can have it. The downloads mean less to me. It doesn't feel right spending the same amount of money for information on a screen. If I downloaded a book, it would be because I didn't really want it.

10 comments:

  1. The best thing about a new book is the way it smells. New paper, ink and glue, I don't think anything smells or feels better than fresh pages. And it looks way more sophisticated if you can show people your home library, with real shelves, and real books, and a real comfy chair...

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  2. Am I not alone in my book smelling? It's almost as good as reading them. Either they all smell different, or I'm mad.

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  3. Haha, no you're definitely not alone in your book smelling. The first thing I do before reading a book (even if it has been on my shelf for years and years) is smell it. I'm weird like that, but not really.

    Oh another one: When I drop my book, I can still read it. Try dropping an iPad and see what happens next.

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  4. I thin iTunes is good if you just want one song from an artist, but otherwise I'll always buy the CD.

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  5. I have a big bookcase full of about five hundred games, books, and movies in total. Looking at them bundled together provokes an almost serene feeling, and whenever someone comes over they say “Jesus, look at all that!” in an impressive and slightly pitiful tone. You’ll never get that reaction with digital products. Try holding your I-Pad or I-Pod up to someone’s face and watch them remain thoroughly unimpressed. They can’t grasp how much you own because there’s nothing physical there to literally grasp.

    Plus, it's possible to get high off of old books by inhaling them.

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  6. Bibi - The smell of a book can bring back memories of reading it. Really, I just smelt a book and it took me back four years.

    Lime(tte) - I like to me keep my iTunes really tidy. Or at least my idea of tidy. Anything less than a whole album of something would freak me out.

    Drake - It's good to build a collection of Stuff. I think an iThing needs to be connected to something physcial otherwise it's worthless.

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  7. I smell books as well, especially old ones.

    As for these electronic books, I suppose they are more practical, but I'd never use one, I love real books far too much to do that. And I would hate to see them become obsolete.

    And I keep my Itunes really tidy as well, I always have the full albums, in fact I often have to have the whole discography of the artists...

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  8. Online books will NEVERreplace the real thing for me. The smell.feel, weight, having them lying aroung, just everything about them a computer screen can't give me. I hate reading off of a screen at the best of times, and you are right, books never run out of batteries or have power cuts either!!
    And you can't beat having a record or CD collection can you? A bunch of downloads can never feel like a 'collection'.

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  9. Jack - Old yellow books that haven't been opened in years? Those are good. Sort of.

    Brent - Also, a bunch of downloads can break slightly when a new 'update' comes in. Stupid internet.

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  10. You are my favorite young fogey.

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