Print vs. EBooks

[Revenant]

I recently purchased a Kindle, which is Amazon's ebook that allows you to download books and keep them on a cloud, like a digital library, presumably forever.

The only downside of an ebook is that illustrations are horrible, and if you feel the need to jump around the text of a book, it can take longer than if you simply held the print copy in your hands.

Recently I have read of some rejecting the entire concept of the ebook, not because it is an inferior way to read a book, but in that there is something disconcerting about the entire ebook phenomena. The image is one of publishers getting everyone on ebooks and then altering texts or eliminating certain books altogether in order to serve some governmental/Bilderberg Group social engineering plan.

How does the group feel about ebook: a good addition that may in some cases replace your library, or is there a truly nefarious downside to it all?

[Cnev]

I have no problem with them, although I still like the feel of paper, pages and even the unique smell that some books offer. The only reason I don't have an e-reader is because I hate spending money, and dropping $15 on a book I want feels less ####ty than dropping $100+ in one sitting. I'll own one at some point, no doubt, especially considering the absolutely #### quality of some books I've bought recently.

[Fenris Technique]

I think eReaders get too little credit for sparking a revival in not only reading, but writing. I imagine in due time we'll look back on this era as another Golden Age in literature - when countless unknown scribblers made their works known, when an alternative to traditional publishing ushered in revolutionary new voices, when libraries were carried in the palm of ones hand, etc.

. . . and a large portion of the credit will be due to eReaders, eBooks, and easy access self publishing.

[qcrisp]

Hate them.

[hopfrog]

I read very little modern horror--usually only those books that I get for free because I am one of ye contributors--but I confess that I am prejudiced in favor of publish'd books and wou'd never read an e-book. Part of the pleasure of reading fiction, for me, is to hold a book in one hand and my coffee mug in ye other, sitting back in my tatter'd armchair and drinking in weird imagery and delicious language. It simply isn't relaxing to be stooped over this keyboard and reading fiction from a screen while trying to ignore ye electric hum of ye computer.

[Souphead]

Quote Originally Posted by Revenant

Recently I have read of some rejecting the entire concept of the ebook, not because it is an inferior way to read a book, but in that there is something disconcerting about the entire ebook phenomena. The image is one of publishers getting everyone on ebooks and then altering texts or eliminating certain books altogether in order to serve some governmental/Bilderberg Group social engineering plan. How does the group feel about ebook: a good addition that may in some cases replace your library, or is there a truly nefarious downside to it all?

Certainly possible but no certainty that it will ever happen. There is an ownership thing and if you don't have an unalterable copy of a text, someone will always have the capability to change it 1984 style. eBooks are good to have but if you have something that the bad guy might want to change or remove, keep a hard copy.

Souphead.

[gveranon]

Having an increasing percentage of my book-hoard in electronic form is necessary if I am going to be able to live in an affordable (i.e., small) place and retire sooner rather than later, which I am hellbent on doing.

[Justin Isis]

Think this has come up a few times before so just going to quote myself:

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

I don't see anything wrong with pirated .pdfs if it's a dead author that only a giant corporation is going to make money from. There's no reason to pay $25 or $30 for a Faulkner or Cortazar, just download or steal the physical book. But when it is a living author whose work you enjoy, why not support them? I don't think Robin Hood would have been as popular if he'd stolen from the poor as well. Ebooks are fine in theory...unless your concept of what a book is differs from the designers of the technology platforms. For example, the Kindle doesn't support non-standard text formatting - which means the book I'm about 95% finished with will be pretty much mutilated by attempts to port it to an ebook. This isn't a matter of personal format preference, it's a matter of being able to experience the book as it was written. For example, some people prefer vinyl albums for their sound quality, while others prefer digital music files because they can listen to them anywhere. But I don't think anyone would prefer a format that left 40% of the album they'd paid for unlistenable. This is the situation facing us with ebooks if you want to do things with writing that the Kindle designers have obviously never considered. I say this as someone with no particular sentimental attachment to print books - I throw away or sell 95% of the print books I buy. But at present Gutenberg technology still allows more expressive possibilities than Amazon technology. This may change in the future, but for now ebooks are a useful if greatly limited supplement at best.

Still doing fine with reading PDFs from a computer and occasionally an iPhone. Still think the Kindle is terrible and have only managed to read a single book on it. I'll put it this way: anything I consider a serious book (i.e. one I feel I can learn from) is going to be read in a print version, so I can interact with it as the three-dimensional object it in fact is and get a sense of its architecture. Anything I suspect I'm only going to be moderately interested in, I might read from a file.

[ToALonelyPeace]

I have a paperwhite (I believe that's its nickname) kindle, and I use it sometime to test the water. I will definitely buy the hard copies of my favorite authors, but I won't waste money on one-timer or traveling books.

I don't hold printed books as sacred because sometime they stink, and sometime their yellow color or texture make me want to throw piss and gasoline on them. However, I agree that certain styles are lost on the e-book. I cannot read Cioran, Celine, or Ligotti on them.

[Comrade Tulayev]

This may come as quite a surprise to those who have read my pro-science pro technology comments in the "science says stop complaining thread", but I unabashedly loathe the e-reader for personal use.

Let me be clear though... I hate the feel and experience of reading a piece of literature/fiction using a laptop, computer, or e-book (Kindle, etc). This is purely a subjective attitude about my literature reading experience. I'm perfectly fine using a computer or e-reader to 1)read a journal article on some scientific advancement, 2) peruse some news article about the current primary election race, 3) access TLO community members' opinions on Ligotti, literature, anti-natalism, machines taking over the world, etc, 4) read tweets into a statistical computation environment and running text analytics on those tweets for customer sentiment analysis.

I also absolutely recognize the benefits to many other readers of fiction or non-fiction who don't have space in their homes to keep physical books, regularly commute or travel and wish to carry their libraries with them, etc, and see the e-reader as a godsend.

For me though, when I read fiction, particularly weird fiction, as I immerse myself into the stories, atmosphere, etc, I really want to be able to hold onto a physical manifestation of that book. As James had noted, I too enjoy the tactile sensation of holding a book, smelling the pages, turning the pages, etc. I love perusing my library of books, looking at the beautifully crafted shapes and sizes of the Ex Occidente editions sitting on the shelves, dutifully resting against the prim, proper, and uniform yellowish books produced by Tartarus Press. I like looking upon those beautifully crafted Centipede Press editions (especially the old ones with out DJ's but had black cloth and silver lettering) as though the entire shelf of Centipede books emanated a darkness contained therein with the twinkling of starlight. I adore the Allen K dust jackets that protect my Midnight House editions. This is a physical library I have cultivated over time... and would not have been possible electronically (actually in many cases, many of these books have not seen electronic format).

I primarily enjoy the literature and writing contained in these books, but I also appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry that goes into how the writing is presented to the reader via a physical manifestation. I will stress though that this is purely a personal aesthetic for fiction. I'm perfectly content consuming non-fictional work via electronic means.

I guess what I am saying is that I'm glad folks can take advantage of this technology, but it's not something I will use as I enjoy the ritual of sitting down, relaxing, and reading a yarn by Quentin Crisp, Colin Insole, George Berguno, Ligotti, Borges etc.

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE