The company I work for has a Yammer account for all of us to engage with each other on. In our Reader's group I posted the following:
In this world of tangible and digital books an author and/or reader should take both types of books into consideration. Which do you like better? Holding a book in your hand, turning the pages as you read, the satisfaction of closing the book as you finish and setting it back on your shelf or lending it to a friend? Or do you prefer the digital version with its convenience and ease? I actually like both. I have many books on my shelves. I also have a Kindle with many books loaded on it. I like my Kindle because I can take just that when I travel and don't have to pack the books I read a bit of daily. Plus I have word games on my Kindle so I'm not taking a crossword puzzle book with me as well. Another bonus is lending: someone loaned me a book on marketing via Amazon. The loan was for 3 weeks. I didn't finish the book in that time but I knew I wanted it so I bought it for my Kindle. Yet at home, I prefer a book I can hold and physically turn the pages of as I read. And now many libraries are lending both types of books as well. There is no reason to just have one or the other. There are so many wonderful books out there to be discovered and now we have more than one way to enjoy them!
To read a book for the first time is to make an acquaintance with a new friend; to read it for a second time is to meet an old one. ~Chinese Saying
One of my co-workers,
Philippe, responded with such an eloquent reply that I asked him if I could share it here. So with his permission:
I use the kindle app on my iPad. It is convenient. that's the point of it and that is also its limitation. I have it because I wanted to read something that was not published physically. I should add that I mostly read fiction, poetry and theatre.
With my kindle app, or with any piece of hardware, I could as easily read, play a a game or post an update on a social medium and this is not the idea I have of a book. You could even say that reading on a piece of hardware disintegrates the idea of the book and leaves you only with its content - as has been done with music: we do not listen to albums anymore, or rarely anyway: we listen to playlists and sound bytes.
When I open a book, I open a box, which contains a world, particular in its scent, its weight, its length, its logic. In that time when I'm reading the book, I step out of time and most of all, out of my reality. I'm in no way tempted to do anything else and if I do, I must physically pause what I am doing. Words will not highlight if I touch them and I will not make the page disappear by pushing on a button by mistake. On top of it all, a book will never die. All I need is a light and the sun, or a candle, may suffice... If it falls in my bath, all I need to do is let it dry. If it gets very cold, I can burn them for heat...
What I like most about the book, is that it is not that much convenient. It takes place, must be shelved, must be opened, and read, and dragged from apartment to apartment (I know a lot about that). I like the fact that it takes up room. All these small inconveniences remind us that Culture is not only about entertainment and that Art, the beauties it suggests - its complexity - is not entirely reducible to some anonymous kilobytes. The book suggests an entity. It also has the weight of the ideas it encloses (oh it can be treacherous sometimes as an image developed on a single line can indeed travel a long way through your heart or your mind). The book suggests the labour of the artist who extracted it from his or her mind and finally, the book makes passion towards it possible. You can kiss a page. You can fold it in a certain way. You can also burn it as slowly as you can and not only delete it. The books I own have on them the marks of my reading. They do not look new anymore.
They look a little more like me, and I think a little more like them.
You can check out his blog,
Kilomètres en spirale.
Image credit:
freedigitalphotos.net
2 comments:
Like I had replied on you FB page I like recorded material for books. For me I think it perhaps because my mind does not slow enough to enjoy a bound book. I find my mind wanders until I realize I have read ten pages but don't remember anything I have read because my mind had floated off thinking of other things too. But when it comes to magazines and newspapers I do enjoy reading those but on an electronic reader of some type. That way I can have my daily paper and several magazines with me where ever I go, and I have it so that I can read any of them on either my laptop, phone, or tablet computer depending on where I am. I guess I can handle reading magazines etc. but not books because the articles are short enough my mind can stay focused on what I am reading. It has been that way all my life probably why I wasn't very good about reading my stuff in school
:)
Thanks for coming over to the blog to comment, Rick! I like using both. When travelling electronic is the way to go, except I bring actual magazines. Though now that I have an iPad I like the magazines on that ok. I've always loved reading ever since I was little. But, it's good that we have so many options to us now as there really are all types of readers.
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