Once upon a time, a book was, to quote my friend Merriam-Webster, "a set of printed sheets of paper that are held together inside a cover." Of course now we can read books on phones, tablet computers, or dedicated e-reading devices (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc.). I've recently been curious about how the nation reads--both how you prefer to read and how you actually read. If you use some kind of electronic contraption for reading, do you use it for all of your reading or only some?
I spend much of my day in front of a computer screen, so I read a lot of words on computer, but I very much prefer physical books when I read for pleasure. (Tangent: In articles about e-books, I've occasionally seen physical books referred to as p-books. Yikes!) I often read while I'm riding the bus, and in that situation a paperback book is my ideal. In any case, I think I'm a more careful reader and I get more out of a piece of writing when I read it on paper rather than on a computer screen. I also really love books as objects and all the tactile qualities they possess. (Except perhaps the musty ones that have been in some basement far too long.)
So what have you been reading? And how have you been reading it?
image credit: cc fishbrain.randy@sbcglobal.net via Flickr
I FINALLY FINISHED THE WHEEL OF TIME!
I generally prefer reading actual paper as its always good to be able to see your progress, especially in a large book. However, I did read an e-book once and found the experience perfectly fine. I actually ended up preferring to read it on my iPod as opposed to the iPad though, which I think is weird.
I read the physical kind, as I just haven't ever doled out the money for a fancy machine of any sort. My phone is a rotary.
As for this month's reading: I'm currently about half way through Egil's Saga. If you've never read an Icelandic Saga, do. Dang fun.
Now go get a copy of Mother of Kings to get a narrative treatment of Egil.
Remind me of this when I finish.
Funny, because I just bought my wife a Kindle today. They're 15% off with the code THNKSFAA (or something like that). I tried reading a book on the iPad once and didn't much care for it (too heavy and the screen seemed too bright maybe?). I think that she'll like the Kindle but I doubt that it will replace paper books entirely for her.
The image here reminds me of one of DG's stories.
I don't even have to follow that link to-
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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know what you're talking about.
Following the link after posting the email, I don't remember everything being linked by underscores.
Perhaps I removed them to improve readability on my printouts.
I was trying to remember why I linked them like that, and I think it was because Word kept making the words their own line separate from the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEs if I didn't make it one big word by linking them.
I'd be willing to try out an e-reader/e-book, but I really like the feel of holding a book, especially hardcover. I really like being able to share and trade them, borrow them from the library or even just go buy one. I love that you can find them everywhere (thrift shops, gas stations, drug stores, heck - most of my Louis L'Amour paperbacks are from Mills Fleet Farm!).
I once read a typewritten 500 page dissertation scanned into a PDF. My eyes didn't work right for a couple weeks afterward.
I have a third-generation Kindle (the keyboard one), which I enjoy quite a bit. I see the new ones have integrated lighting, which is nice, but I think it will take forever for the Kindle I already have to become obsolete unless Amazon does something artificial to accelerate that. Mrs. Hayes has the first Kindle Touch, but she seems to prefer reading via the Kindle apps on her iPhone or iPad. To each their own.
Owning the Kindle means choosing which books I'd like to read on it, and which books I'd like to own in proper book form. When you buy new vinyl, you often get the album on mp3 for free. It seems that, despite the marginal cost of ebooks compared to print books, that ebook prices will remain roughly on par with print books for a good while. If you buy the print book, Amazon wants to charge $1-3 per Kindle book to "match" your library. I haven't yet worked out a satisfactory system for what I buy on Kindle. Books for work are almost always physical copies. Books for leisure are often ebooks, but if I really enjoy the book, I know I'll want to get a physical copy of it.
Case in point: right now I'm reading Andrei Gelasimov's Gods of the Steppe. I'll probably want a physical copy of it once I'm finished if I continue to enjoy it as much as I am right now. I grew up in a very book-friendly household about a block and a half from our town's public library. When you've been surrounded by them all your life, it's hard to shake the love of the physical book, even if it's somewhat irrational or impractical.
Owning the Kindle means choosing which books I'd like to read on it, and which books I'd like to own in proper book form.
Exactly this. We have an inherited Kindle that likely will never get used and the Nook I purchased for myself. Because of only one e-reader, we tend to still purchase books. I decided to use the Nook for books where an electronic format is simpler to acquire, e.g. public domain books.
Public domain books are part of my ebook constellation, too. (Exceptions for major works like The Federalist Papers and whatnot.) The other category of book I'm pretty comfortable getting as ebooks are current events/politics books that seem to have a decade-or-less shelf life. If I find one particularly compelling I can usually pick up a paper copy in a bargain bin somewhere down the line.
Books I've finished recently:
At the Bottom of Everything by Ben Dolnick. This was good. I really dug his writing style, and the story was both surprising and affecting. At times it bordered on profound.
Redshirts by John Scalzi. Boy, this one was tough. I love love loved the concept, but unfortunately I don’t think Scalzi is a strong enough writer to do it justice. He does some okay snappy dialogue, but everything else about it was pretty artless. My sister said the audiobook was really good, and I believe that (it was read by Wil Wheaton!), but it did not make for a good novel. I wish it had been written by someone else.
The Stench of Hololulu by Jack Handy. Hilarious.
One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses by Lucy Corin. This collection really blew me away. Each story has this dizzying other-worldly vibe and they are all so earnestly engaging, and they straddle that line of mystery/melancholy that gives me jitters as I turn the page. It was another one of those times where everything about it was so thoroughly suited to my interests that it almost felt like it was written specifically for me.
Books I’m excited to read soon:
Night Film by Marisha Pessl. I enjoyed her first book Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and her new one looks even more interesting. I also kinda have a crush on her.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Her first book The Secret History was really good. Her second book The Little Friend was really great. I’m dying to find out if she can top it.
Also, re: the topic question: I think that if I had an e-reader I would love it, but I'm going to resist getting one as long as I possibly can. I think they are amazingly cool from a technological standpoint, but I'm a little too resentful of what they are doing to the publishing industry.
I'm intrigued by The Goldfinch but I've heard I really have to start with The Secret History.
I don't know if you have to. It's a good book, but I don't think I'd consider it required reading. I thought The Little Friend was a lot better.
Good to know!
I definitely prefer books, but I have so little time to read it's almost moot. I have a Nook J got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. I feel bad because I don't use it often, though I have a few books loaded up on it when I have some time for reading. I've been considering buying an iPad Air lately for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that Crunchyroll has a new manga service that has some stuff I can't buy in book form and I think I'd much rather read on there than off my phone/PC.
I love physical books and read them every day going to and from work on the bus.
In the last month, I read Catherine the Great by Robert Massie. Short review: decent, but not nearly as great as Peter the Great.
I also reread Huck Finn. I was amazed that I had completely forgotten some sections (for example, the ending) while making others much more influential (for example, the Hatfields and McCoys in the middle) than they really were. It was still awfully enjoyable although I found Tom Sawyer to be very annoying.
After all this Russian reading in the last year, I have finally attacked War and Peace. I'm about 350 pages in, so we'll see if I can wrap it up before next month. So far, it is very, very good.
I'm so-so on the Romanovs, but I intensely dislike Peter the Great.
I'm not necessarily saying PtG was "Great", but Massie's bio was incredible at laying out the political landscape of Europe at the dawn of the Eighteenth Century.
Huh. I would definitely give Massie's PtG the "great" label, but the I read it about 25 years ago (?) when I had lots of time to read. what is the beef with it?
I could probably count on one hand the number of books I've read in the past few years that weren't work-related, for my kids, field guides, or parenting-and/or-spousing nonfiction.
As Casa de Leche followers may have figured out, I don't have any device that I like to read from. I definitely don't like reading things over a certain length on a computer monitor. What I do is collect things that I do like to read: articles, short fiction, etc, into long MS Word documents that I then reformat for printing. My regular print-format macro is two columns, small margins, thin spaces between paragraphs. I keep it at profile, and typically 13-point. Then duplex printing on both sides (so four pages in the document = one sheet of paper, not sure if that makes the print 6.5-point).
Fold in half and in half again, and put in my pocket for times like bus commutes, arriving at a meeting on-time (when everyone else is typically late), waiting out bedtime tantrums, etc.
Sounds like an old-school version of Instapaper, AMR.
I call it my low-tech, disposable "Kindle".
It has other functions, too! Grocery lists, reminders, calculator, etc.
I love reading (and owning) physical books, but when it comes to hardcovers, give me the e-version every time. I don't need the hand weariness.
Haven't read anything lately (besides the monthly Astronomy magazine), but I've pre-ordered the latest Priscilla Hutchins novel by Jack McDevitt (due out tomorrow) from the local library. I like his works a lot.
It varies. I have a Nexus 10 which I really enjoy, and if find that if I have the book in an electronic format, I can read a lot more often between that and my phone. My library is fairly limited on it, though, to the David Weber books that I got for free on the enclosed CD. I enjoy relaxing with an actual book, too, but it happens far less due to the amount of time it takes to get the book out, find the right page, and so on.
There is an article in this month's Scientific American that covers this topic. I'm only about halfway through so far (in physical format) and it talks about why humans read better with a physical book instead of an electronic format. Some of it is eye strain, reflected versus generated light, while some has to do with how our brain reads.
I just started 5 days at memorial. I'll have my thoughts organized on this book by the time bs forgets the next book post.
As far as e vs p, I'm very firmly on the side of physical books. I love the weight of a hard cover book, the smell of the ink and paper, and the way dog ears on my favorite pages look when back on the shelves. As a printer I'm saddened by the death of large scale commercial print houses, and as a collector I'm afraid for the future. I also enjoy the fact that when the power goes out you can still read a book by candle light, and a book can be dried out if accidentally dropped into the bathtub.
I took a bookbinding class in college that gave me a lot of appreciation for books as physical objects. We took a field trip to an artist's studio to see the letterpress he'd recently acquired an assembled. Fascinating stuff.
To keep my Italian vacation going, when I got back I ordered R.J.B. Bosworth's biography on Mussolini.
I've read a lot o books/seen many movies about Hitler's Germany, but I personally did not know much about the Duce and his period of rule in Italy.
The writer is an Australian, but I would recommend this edition for an Anglophone audience. The book is long and technical (i.e. 510 pages, but 162 of these are footnotes and references) and dry. The author seems to not be a fan of The Great Leader, but tries to lay things out to be historically accurate.
From the read, my initial impressions on Mussolini's dictatorship can best be described as petty thug'ocracy.
He starts his career as a editor of Socialist broadsheets, fails as a schoolteacher multiple times, lambasts against everything. He spends a short amount of time in the Great War, but becomes famous as a journalist for the common soldier. After the war, after getting tossed out of the Socialist ranks, starts up his own Fascist nationalist faction. Once he completes a coup and is in power, he quickly consolidates rule by disassembling most of the structures of State, but casts down neither King nor Pope. People start disappearing, and a culture of fear and fealty permeates the country throughout his rule.
The author casts him as having a sharp pen, and as a great orator. He spends a lot of time comparing him to Hitler and Stalin, and in this gives M. a much more human, and even frail, aspect. He is human, and no mad-man. He does not have the passion to kill Jews that the Nazis do.
Under his rule, Italy emcompasses Libya, Albania, Corfu, the Dodecanese Islands, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somaliland. To keep the Alto-Adige, they consider moving the Germans there to Sicily or Albania (so the Germans don't invade).
After the Allied forces invade the south, M. is jailed for a while, then liberated by the Germans, who put him in power again in a puppet role. He never regains his past stature, and after the Germans are gone, he is killed while trying to escape to Switzerland.
The most memorable photo in the book is of the corpses of M. and his mistress Claretta Petacci strung upside down in the Piazzale Loreto in Milano.
An interesting read. Oh, and paper books for me.
I tend to move quite a bit, so I really like my Kindle for portability. I tend to read in both formats about equally. If there's a book I want and it's $10-15 on Amazon or at the library for free in print, I'll go to the library. If there's a book on Amazon's daily Kindle sale for $2 and I have it near-instantly and save a trip to the library, I'll do that. I'm really not arsed debating which is a better experience; I'll take whichever is lazier. I just want to read what I want to read.
One thing I do prefer is either Kindle or print over laptop. Too much laptop kills my eyes (I also could probably use an eye check-up. My reading glasses are still my HS prescription). I use Readability to send long articles to my Kindle so I can read them with less strain.
Finished Books
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH - 18 months, 3 houses, and 2 countries later, I'm finally done. It was hard to read too much in one go, as it could get a bit depressing with all the Nazi-ing going on.**
Casino Royale - Quick read, finished it in a day. It was fun comparing Fleming's Bond versus the various screen portrayals. **
The Devil In The Grove - I read this after seeing Drew Magary mention it a couple of times. I know his writing style isn't always everyone's taste, but I've never been lead astray by one of his recommendation. It was a fascinating portrait of racism in post-Jim Crow but pre-Civil Rights Act South. As a middle class, midwestern white male, the experiences of the poor black men in Florida are a completely different world. I**
The Fault in Our Stars - I've been working on being less cynical, so I read this knowing it was sad. It's not that I wanted to cry, per se, or was gonna force myself to, but to not go all hard-ass and allow myself to be moved if the book so moved me.
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Another quick read. I read it in about 5 hours. It's written for teens, so after Third Reich (which I read immediately preceeding), I flew past it. Like taking the donut off a bat. ‡
The Alchemist - I read this right after TFiOS, and their two views of the nature of the Universe and destiny were very interesting. A recurring quote in TFiOS is “The world is not a wish-granting factory" while in The Alchemist the recurring quote is "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Two very different outlooks on life and it was definitely something to read them back-to-back.
In Progress
Complete Short Stories of Hemingway - I read bits and pieces here and there as refreshers between other books.**
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - So far the biggest take away for me is the need to buy a motorcycle and explore the West. I'm about 1/2 as of today. ‡
In The Queue
Native Son**
The Craft of Intelligence: America's Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering for a Free World by Allen Dulles. **
The double-dagger!
I had The Third Reich as a textbook in college, and although the class was one quarter long, it felt like it took that long for me to read it as well.
They just finished filming for The Fault in Our Stars movie a couple of weeks ago (John Green was Tweeting about it). It will be a must-see for Daughter the Younger, who may be the biggest John Green fan in the state. I'm good with that because John Green has led to be a big Vonnegut fan as well.
Over the years I have also migrated a lot of my reading from book and newspapers to the computer screen, but lately I've been getting back to my reading roots, and while my wife has a Kindle I've never really cottoned to it. I just love books and always have. Over the weekend I read one of the best novels I've read in a long time -- City of Thieves. It was written by David Benioff, one of the producers of Game of Thrones, and follows the exploits of Lev Beniov and Kolya, a charismatic Red Army deserter, as they try to stay alive and fulfill a seemingly hopeless quest during the siege of Leningrad. Lately it's been taking me a few weeks to work my way through a book, but I read this one in two days, staying up to 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning until my eyes were itching and blurred and I had to sleep. I also finally finished American Rust, the story of a killing in a depressed Pennsylvania steel mill town and how it affects the lives of the two friends involved and their families. Pretty good book told from alternating points of view of six different characters.
I have a folder on my Kindle called "Finished Samples". I get a lot of sample books, and anyone I like well enough to want to read in their entirety I move to that folder. Those I don't, I delete. City of Thieves is in that folder. (Another Magary recommendation I believe)
Also, thanks for mentioning the GoT connection. I knew I'd heard that name before, but I couldn't place it and it wasn't bothersome enough to remember to google it.