I am a shameless bibliophile but also an “adapter” of new technologies. Yet, I have not been schlepping the device around with me, even so it will store a big chunk of my library and the neighborhood's newsstand.
I am tactile and love touching books feeling the pages, the type, smelling the paper and the ink. Too many books have remained favorite reads. I have read them in different languages over the years (talk about obsession!) and I can’t imagine getting the same pleasure from an electronic reader.
Could I have appreciated Apollinaire’s poetry without these delicious covers?
Or, La Fontaine's?
No paper? Would they relish being read on a gadget? Knowing them, I would say, NON!
The art of bookmaking-of printing and paper making-is one of the most respected of the many crafts in which artisans excel. I often have observed them, and I am pleasantly surprised to see that this beautiful art is not dead. Restoring old books—resewing the pages, making new covers —with a lot of love, attention, and reverence is a bibliophiles delight.
Don’t these beautiful editions feel/sound/look better on paper?
See...gone digital…
Jiri Slíva «SATIRIKON’80» (Karikaturen aus sozialistischen Ländern)
Berlin Eulenspiegel Verlag
2 comments:
I don't follow the e-book and e-reader business very closely, and I won't be buying either until there's an open source reader that will allow me to buy and read e-books from any vendor. My idea of Hell is buying a Kindle and being forced to buy e-books only from Amazon and nowhere else.
(1) Batteries and power supplies and cords
(2) Breakage (I just broke LCD screen on my digital camera--it can't be fixed)
(3) Obsolescence and tech changes
(4) Initial cost
(5) Duplicates other systems (I've GOT a laptop; GOT a netbook!)
(6) Another thing to lug
(7) Hard to make notes in the margin, underline, and otherwise personalize
(8) Not particularly green
(9) Books still have irreplaceable/unreplicatable features
(10) Low Luddite appeal
I stick with Gutenberg
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