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Books as objects
Many years ago, I thought that books were things to acquire, and never to dispose of. I bought books that I wanted to read, books that I thought I might like to read, and books I thought might be useful, and my library grew and grew. I read a lot, but bought more books that I could catch up with.
Then it slowly dawned on me that my interest in books should not be focused on the size of my library, but rather on the joy I had in reading books. And that joy was as much to do with the physical form of the book as with the contents of the book. I bought hardbacks because I liked the way that they felt in my hands and the way that they looked on my shelves. I learned to appreciate typography (initially fuelled by reading and rereading Knuth’s book on TeX), and grew dismissive of people who were willing to read mass-market paperbacks, with their poor design, shoddy bindings, nasty paper, and narrow margins.
I started to buy Folio Society books (some by subscription, and more from eBay); a lot of fiction (which I devoured) and non-fiction (which mostly sits of my shelves unread). I must stop buying non-fiction.
But then ebooks hit me, just a couple of years ago. I realised that I could buy books from Apple’s iBookstore (and occasionally from Amazon’s Kindle web site), and that I could read them quite happily on my iPhone screen (and latterly on my iPad).
Just as the old quote says that the best camera is the one that’s with you, the same applies to books. My iPhone is with me almost all the time, and my iPad is with me much of the time, so I always have books available to read, and it is now much easier to fill a quiet moment with a book than it ever was when I was reading hardbacks. Although I wish they could do more to improve the on-screen typography.
In the past couple of years I’ve gone from looking at my bookshelves as a rich resource of future pleasure, to seeing them as an archaic and dusty collection of dead trees. Apart from a few specific volumes, I no longer find the same thrill in the physical form of books.
I doubt I’ll buy many physical books in the future, except, perhaps, as presents, or to complete existing collections.
(By the way, it is clear to me that hardback fiction should be shelved without dust covers or slip cases, sorted alphabetically by author, and chronologically within each author, with the exception that specific series of books may be shelved together. Anything else would just be wrong.)
Then it slowly dawned on me that my interest in books should not be focused on the size of my library, but rather on the joy I had in reading books. And that joy was as much to do with the physical form of the book as with the contents of the book. I bought hardbacks because I liked the way that they felt in my hands and the way that they looked on my shelves. I learned to appreciate typography (initially fuelled by reading and rereading Knuth’s book on TeX), and grew dismissive of people who were willing to read mass-market paperbacks, with their poor design, shoddy bindings, nasty paper, and narrow margins.
I started to buy Folio Society books (some by subscription, and more from eBay); a lot of fiction (which I devoured) and non-fiction (which mostly sits of my shelves unread). I must stop buying non-fiction.
But then ebooks hit me, just a couple of years ago. I realised that I could buy books from Apple’s iBookstore (and occasionally from Amazon’s Kindle web site), and that I could read them quite happily on my iPhone screen (and latterly on my iPad).
Just as the old quote says that the best camera is the one that’s with you, the same applies to books. My iPhone is with me almost all the time, and my iPad is with me much of the time, so I always have books available to read, and it is now much easier to fill a quiet moment with a book than it ever was when I was reading hardbacks. Although I wish they could do more to improve the on-screen typography.
In the past couple of years I’ve gone from looking at my bookshelves as a rich resource of future pleasure, to seeing them as an archaic and dusty collection of dead trees. Apart from a few specific volumes, I no longer find the same thrill in the physical form of books.
I doubt I’ll buy many physical books in the future, except, perhaps, as presents, or to complete existing collections.
(By the way, it is clear to me that hardback fiction should be shelved without dust covers or slip cases, sorted alphabetically by author, and chronologically within each author, with the exception that specific series of books may be shelved together. Anything else would just be wrong.)
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But for everyday reading I read ebooks, mainly on my Kindle, and to a lesser extent on my iPad. Before I got my Kindle I was reading ebooks on my iPod touch. This got me reading again, and overcame many of the disability problems I was having with print books, which were a combination of physical problems holding them, and more serious cognitive problems reading dense pages of text. With ebooks I can adjust the font size and spacing to be optimal for me, and the screen size is better. On those rare occasions I read print books I really struggle, even with large print ones.
My PhD looked at reading habits in the past, and I'm fundamentally interested in books as items to be read, and it doesn't matter whether they're physical books or ebooks. The act of reading is the same for me. And I find ebooks so positive in many ways.
I've recently written a blog arguing that book historians need to look at ebooks and digital publishing more. I'm hoping it's going to be published on the website of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing - a society I've been a member of for many years, and have been to some of their conferences in Nova Scotia, and, more recently, Dublin. Whether it is or not it's an area my research interests are gravitating towards, partly for personal reasons, but also it's a nice crossover between reading history and computing and technology.
I'm currently reading a newly published book (in my case reading on Kindle) by Andrew Piper: "Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times". I recommend it highly based on what I've read so far.
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For libraries, for reference, and for lending, I can see a role for hardbacks. Indeed, I question whether ebooks are really a practical concept for lending libraries — the current implementations look pretty shoddy, and I imagine that the level of DRM required will continue to be irksome. I hope libraries don’t waste a lot of their limited resources chasing ebook lending.
Where I see a big value in ebooks is in conservation, and providing access to rare texts.
And while I’m sure that the book you recommend is interesting, I refuse to look further, based on my track record of buying non-fiction that I never get around to reading!
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Fair point re the non fiction books, but I read masses of them. I worked through lots of O'Reilly's programming interview/essay books on my iPod touch, and still get some of their new books from time to time, such as a recently published one about sci fi lessons for user interface design, and another about steampunk and technology. Both are on my Kindle at the moment. Usually I have one main fiction book on the go, a number of short story collections at the same time, and several non fiction books. I'm a bit of a flighty thing when it comes to reading, and don't tend to stick to one thing. Also when I'm more brain tired the non fiction books tend to be easier to read than the fiction ones that can require more attention.
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... I haven't shifted to ebooks (yet) but at the same time, I have moved away from reading printed books ... I used to read at least one a week, sometimes one a day ... and now I'm reading probably closer to one a month (I'm still reading a lot, but it's mostly online ... a combination of social media, news sites, blogs and other output) ...
... and I too have a large paper library which I look at and wonder how many of those books will ever be opened again ...
... oh, and my hardback fiction is shelved *with* dust jackets and slipcases, in alphabetical order by author, and then alphabetical by title, unless they are part of a series, then they are sequential (based on story order) and the series is placed alphabetically. The same as for my paperbacks ... with a few exceptions (all Star Trek books are together, all Lensman books are together. Star Trek (and Star Wars, and Space 1999) are shelved under "S" not under their authors ... and all mixed author collections are together in alphabetical order by *title* not by editor.
At least they will be once I can get the shelves unscrambled after my last house move ...
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It's a commonly cited experience by ebook readers that they read more ebooks than they read print books previously.
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