Through hikers are used to an extreme version of this: tearing the pages out and burning them as you go. I am more of a random-access tease but weight is weight.
Chopping up books when they're physically too big
171–180 of 211 posts
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#172Having hundreds of books at home and being a great enjoyer of old books, fuck off.
It’s the jaunty howdy-doody tone whilst describing acts of desecration that gets me.
My wife assumed it must have been a joke post!
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#173Are AI companies trying to poison the search index? Like Boris Johnson did when he had fun times with a model on the campaign bus, then did a bizarre interview when he claimed he made model buses! https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/26/mesmerising...
I heard this is a common tactic in news forum discussions too. When you don't want people talking about the substance of the post, then you mention something like how the site is hosted on wix which supports the IDF, and derail the conversation.
It doesn't work that much on sites which organize comments in a tree, like HN or Reddit. You can just fold that part of the thread.
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. I’m almost 40 and never knew this!
Yeah, really, Barnes & Noble marketing is missing a beat by not printing that as a bookmark to include with new book sales after asking the question at the register, "Has the person you are buying this hardcover for ever opened a new book correctly?" Oblig. XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1053/ (which I kind of wish was comic #1,000 so it was easy to remember/link)
A better solution would be for them to just pre-open the books so you don't need complex rituals to read them.
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
And you don't even have to hold it open and mess with bookmarks which at least to me was always super annoying. And the built in lamp, chapter search and dictionary. And single tap page forward and back. Physical books are beyond obsolete imho.
> mess with bookmarks I’ve have had enough bookmarks fall out of the book that I have changed my strategy. Instead of using a bookmark I take a photo of the last page I was reading before closing the book. I then add the photo to favourites so it’s easier to find. And then later when I continue to read, I check in my camera roll to see what page I was on. With the current book I am reading I also like to end on the e…
> I’ve have had enough bookmarks fall out of the book that I have changed my strategy.
I solved this with small post-it notes I use as bookmarks. Some of my textbooks and recipe books have dozens of them, colour-coded. Very convenient.
For novels I just stopped using bookmarks. I open roughly where I left off, read a sentence. If the book is new or I read it last recently, it’s accurate to within a page or two. If I remember the sentence, I skip forward a couple of pages, otherwise I skip back. Occasionally I reread a paragraph I forgot. Otherwise it just reminds me of what was happening before a new reading session.
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#176This is done by default in Japan. Most long books are sold as different volumes, parts, etc. At first I didn't really like it (especially because you'd have to buy both Vol.1 and 2 for the whole thing), but it makes sense if you're going to be bringing books around with you.
Japanese manga is kinda interesting in that regard too - they're noticeably more diminutive than Western publications of the same manga, usually, and often on quite nice quality paper. They're usually paperbacks with dust jackets too, which you don't see too often over here in the UK. I have both Japanese and English copies of a few of the same manga and I do much prefer the feel of the Japanese ones, although as someone who bought them to learn the language (and failed, again) they can sometimes be quite challenging in terms of font size.
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#17720ish years ago I complained to my college roommate that my math book was too big. He asked if I was gonna sell it back, and I said I couldn’t—they had a new edition out, so mine was worthless. Cut it, he said. It was something I had never considered. Not for a moment. Books were sacred to me. Cut one? Blasphemy. But he was right. And so I cut it. And it fixed all of my complaints. What I learned is that some folks h…
cue https://youtu.be/kYfNvmF0Bqw?t=12 :)
Note that voluntarism can equally help or hurt.
When it fits, it may bring high achievement and self realization.
When misplaced, it may bring suffering and disillusionment.
One has to develop a grasp at when to use it.
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once read that the only way you can actually damage a book, is by not reading it.
Well, one can damage a hardcover by not opening it properly the first time: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifehacks/comments/7sry7v/open_a_ha... (which was a lesson in 2nd grade, when we got our first-ever hardcover textbooks)
That's sure can't be true for "modern" (as in 1960s+) books? Bookstores normally allow to look inside hardcovers without being instructed on proper handling first
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
>which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book. A physical book, you encounter in physical space. Thus has a lot more chance to get read. The ebook, one has to take a device and press some button, before the book has even a chance of getting seen... My ebooks typically get downloaded once, and sits forever unread in some device.. A physical book, I take from a lib and gets read automatically,…
I have the reverse. I have a tiny e-reader that fits in my pocket next to my phone. I pull that out instead of doomscrolling on the phone, so I read on trains, on the toilet, etc. It's much more convenient than carrying a dead-tree book around. So I'm way more likely to read a book as an epub.
There's one you can attach to your phone
Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big
#180I came to a similar realization recently. I used to care so much about how pristine my books looked and then I realized that some of my favorite books I have found in used bookstores are ones which are written all over and have a well-worn feel to them. I now annotate all my books with pencil and also write my name in them. I love seeing a history of who's owned a given book when I open the front cover and see a name…
The few times I've had a chance to have something signed by an author I like, I've deliberately taken along with me an old and well-loved copy of one of their books. I've bought the new one, sure, but it's the old one I'll ask them to sign. I don't even know if I'll like the new one yet! No one has said anything about it, yet, but I kind of hope they notice and appreciate it.
my guess is that they'd actually just assume you haven't bought the new one!