The problem with ebooks to me is that they have no real physical presence (obviously) and therefore I have a harder time remembering if I read them, and where I read them. On the other hand I have a ton of physical books on my shelf, and can specifically look at one, remember what it’s about, and where I read it. The book itself is a kind of memory totem, and over time I’ve built up a nice little physical collection…
I’m a big proponent of physical books: I have several thousand in my home. But last week, I finally got my first e-reader, the Xteink X4, which I got because it was small and cheap. In ten days, I’ve read J.-K. Huysmans’s Durtal tetralogy, Nancy Maguire’s An Infinity of Little Hours, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, and I’ll finish Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest this evening. I don’t think I’ve ev…
The new bibliomaniacs
81–89 of 89 posts
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
After I started reading essays printed in books, like Emerson's, I realized there is no blogger alive that is worth reading anymore. Something to consider.
Amen. I never understood how such an avid blog reading community existed when, compared to published essays, the vast bulk of it is drivel. I guess I simply hadn't realized that many people out there may have never read a formal or published essay. What a shame.
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly how I feel although I do wonder if a lot of younger people, if any still become readers, will just a different, less physical relationship with their books than I do or you do. It's probably a bad example but I don't have any physical connection with music or video anymore for instance, but I definitely remember having that kind of relationship with favorite records and tapes when I was a kid. And now…
As a bit of anecdata, my kids show a slight preference for physical books over ebooks, although they’re happy enough to listen to digital audio books. They have literally no experience with physical media for music but have at least encountered DVDs and Blu-Rays (although when I talk about watching something on disc they actively resist it—the convenience of pulling up something on streaming outweighs the limited sel…
It IS more inconvenient to have them pull them out. No question about that.
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
otoh regular books: - can't be read in dark mode - can't change font or font size (or line/paragraph spacing) - can't use search - can't be in multiple places (multiple devices)... uh, easily - etc I think you just have embrace the positives of whichever you choose.
- you can't carry 50 of them in your backpack. Invaluable as I travel the world. I still vastly prefer paper books, however.
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a big proponent of physical books: I have several thousand in my home. But last week, I finally got my first e-reader, the Xteink X4, which I got because it was small and cheap. In ten days, I’ve read J.-K. Huysmans’s Durtal tetralogy, Nancy Maguire’s An Infinity of Little Hours, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, and I’ll finish Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest this evening. I don’t think I’ve ev…
Did you flash yours with cross point?
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you share more details on how you were able to set this up? Do you use Koreader?
I wrote a python script that I run locally which scrapes read.amazon.com (think this is the URL, I’ll double check when I’m home). Kindle highlights are automatically synced there. The Python scraper extracts all highlights into a json file and stores this in S3. I have a Lambda function which runs daily, selects a random highlights, and emails it to me. I’m using AWS SES for sending out the emails. I think it’s all…
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly how I feel although I do wonder if a lot of younger people, if any still become readers, will just a different, less physical relationship with their books than I do or you do. It's probably a bad example but I don't have any physical connection with music or video anymore for instance, but I definitely remember having that kind of relationship with favorite records and tapes when I was a kid. And now…
As a bit of anecdata, my kids show a slight preference for physical books over ebooks, although they’re happy enough to listen to digital audio books. They have literally no experience with physical media for music but have at least encountered DVDs and Blu-Rays (although when I talk about watching something on disc they actively resist it—the convenience of pulling up something on streaming outweighs the limited sel…
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a bit of anecdata, my kids show a slight preference for physical books over ebooks, although they’re happy enough to listen to digital audio books. They have literally no experience with physical media for music but have at least encountered DVDs and Blu-Rays (although when I talk about watching something on disc they actively resist it—the convenience of pulling up something on streaming outweighs the limited sel…
A true story: literally hours after posting this, I was with my kids at Barnes and Noble and they had records and CDs for sale by the cash register and my daughter asked what they were and when I explained it to my kids, they were skeptical and asked why someone would want such things.
A Discman. They couldn't even use a Walkman.
Re: The new bibliomaniacs
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you flash yours with cross point?
I did, and then I flashed Crossink, and I’m currently using vCodex at the moment, just because I wanted to check out the various options. I’m not sure if I’ll stick with vCodex, since I don’t really care that much about all of the stats, and I liked the interface of Crosspoint/Crossink marginally better.