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Sometimes I insist on a p-book
November 24, 2007 | 5:11 pm
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By Paul Biba
Sometimes I want it on my shelf so I can just look at it—even if I read the e-book version.
In my posting on The Road, below, I said that I was going to buy the hardcover version. This seemed to confuse some of the commenters, and it was my intention that confusion should result. It seems to me that some books, by their very nature, need to be sitting on the bookshelf and staring down at you. For me these are books that are especially important, and ones that I want to be continually reminded about. E-books, while nice for reading, are inherently ephemeral and don’t intrude themselves into your consciousness.
Now what books do I want on my shelf, reminding me of their presence every day? These are just some of the ones that I insist be available in hard copy:
Winston Churchill’s works: I’ve collected every book he ever wrote (not in original editions, unfortunately) as well as several shelves of biographies – including Martin Gilbert’s multi-volume work, with supplementary volumes
Durant’s The Story of Civilization and all of Sherlock Holmes
All of the works of Sir Richard Burton, China Mieville, H.P. Lovecraft, Gibbon, Michael Moorcock, Tolkein, Lewis Carrol and Terry Pratchett
Stephen King’s The Stand and the Gunslinger series
And there are a fair amount of others—Neil Gaiman, Stephen R. Donaldson, Simon R. Green, Glen Cook, to name a few.
E-books are nice, but somehow looking over my bookshelves every day gives me an indefinable feeling that having the same collection in e-book form could never duplicate.
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Comments:
>>>Ebooks, while nice for reading, are inherently ephemeral and don’t intrude themselves into your consciousness.
Huh? Wha? WTF?, even.
Maybe *your* consciousness, but I don’t happen to read ephemeral stuff. I could bury you right now in quotes culled from the stuff I read. (Warning: I am armed with a pen scanner — and I use it!)
It’s fine if you want a nice display of books. I’m done with that part of my life after having had to *move* the things too many times in my life (want to see a nice x-ray of my lower back?). The pleasure of a wall of books is no longer there for me.
All of Holmes? Agreed. Especially those lovely annotated ones put out by Harvard, I think it was. But really, I’d rather have them in e.
BTW: You sold me. I went and got Cormac’s book from the NYPL not an hour ago. I’ll read it after Earth Abides.
In my opinion, ebooks will never replace printing, any more than printing replaced handwriting. However, it does mean that things will radically change, and printing will have to redefine its purpose and form.
The fact is that technologically speaking the vast majority of what is printed no longer should be.
The other thing to be kept in mind is that digital technology is still in its infancy, for archiving reasons alone there is a need to print some works, the quick-print book technology has its place, but even the humble laser printer has a role in stacking away data, that is no longer required, but may be useful unpredictably in the future.
Even with ebook readers, dozens of them, I can see the need to have printed quotes, sections and annotations in the familiar untidy piles I use for researching and writing. Ebook technology will make it less wasteful, and even more useful (especially when a good reference system is worked out).
Printing will not disappear, but nothing can stop the need for it to change dramatically because of this newer technology.
>>>In my opinion, ebooks will never replace printing
Never say never. But, yes, Barry Eisler changed my mind about POD, so letters/images on paper will still be around.
Experts touted the paperless office. Ha.
I suppose people said similar things when printed books replaced those beautiful hand-made illuminated scrolls and books written on parchment. In fact some older friends say they received their university degrees hand written on parchment – it was still considered the way to go for “important” documents up until about midway through the 20th century. So Pbooks will probably hang around for another 300 years or so. Another point is that they do hang around, I still read books in my collection that are well over 100 years old. (No DRM!)