flight paths discussion

without resorting to hard feelings, please give your position on the the pro and con of the reading machine.

I have moved a discussion with Kinkajou and myslf to this spot to get started.

No offense is intended to those who use one.

Yesterday I sat down beside a youngish guy on the bus, and I noticed he had a reading machine. In fact he was reading. It wasnt a pretty sight.
When I expressed interest he was very defensive & reluctant to let me even look at the thing. I noticed he went to the next page by pushing a little button. Yes, he could go back to the previous page if he wanted to, and I understand its possible to highlight passages, but what about riffing through to reread something that suddenly seems pertinent, or check a fact you never thought to note....or for pleasure.
There seems to be no pleasure in the ultra linear ebook as a thing in itself. The book has become a tool,a functional container for text. It is bland and anonymous, and although I presume somebody in the design and marketing department will surely do something about that, it is stripped of its individuality with the soul of a machine & no personality.

When I expressed interest he was very defensive & reluctant to let me even look at the thing.

Kinkajou wrote
10 hours, 21 min ago

Interesting reaction. I don't know what you mean by "youngish" but I'm betting he's one of the newer generation who are used to the utilitarian function of electronics. Such as the internet which allows lots of "friends" but lacks all the experiences that hanging out with friends in person entails. There's already an entire generation who doesn't "get" what the big deal is about not holding a book or hanging out with friends at the book store or bowling alley or where ever.

I'm no Luddite, I love my computer and phone and whatnot, but my paranoia about human beings allows me to see a future where people are even less compassionate and engaged because they don't have personal connections.

Youngish as in mid to late twenties.
He was hunched over the thing, which he read quite slowly it seemed to me. At one point he was interrupted by a phone call to his mother. He went from being very firm about not being able to do whatever, then to a long explanation of why he could not, which must have sounded as feeble to his mother as it did to me, because after a long pause he got to maybe and then we'll discuss it later. I hate being a prisoner to these conversations, I am a Luddite who has strayed far, I do love my computer, but thats as far as I am prepared to go.

Undecided ......... to add it to my christmas present list, known to myself as travelling more in hope than expectation.

I dread the day when some books will be electronic only..... it may have arrived already.

I am happy reading recycled paper.

Ice wrote: "Undecided ......
I dread the day when some books will be electronic only..... it may have ..."

It's part of the dystopian scenario....
There seems to be a massive campaign to convince people of the obsolesence of the book and to shut down bookstores. Its just a hop away from making MOST titles available to controlling our reading choices. Even our beloved GR, by its alliance with Amazon and advertisers, is prone to pushing certain Titles. All these bestseller and must read lists and other promo campaigns.
Never take the quirkiness out of my reading choices.


Kinkajou brought up the notion of rebels using Twitter to start a revolution and the Gov't facebook page. It's rather mind-boggling, isn't it?
I have never even considered twitter, but from K's post I'm thinking, if the govt is using facebook, maybe it's time to UNsubscribe. Maybe get a twit account.:)
I don't love FB like I do GR, its so very surface.
Not that it isnt enlightening to participate in some things,and my friends there are all actual friends whom I already love. Its a way of keeping in touch, but I prefer youtube for videos and GR for the idea exchange.

Time to design and build a "Flight Paths recommend" search engine !

:-))

Ice wrote: "Time to design and build a "Flight Paths recommend" search engine !

:-))" Just do it Ice, if you truly believe that we have acheived consensus.
I think we are still just getting to know each other, and because we like each other so much,we can tolerate our differences, and even learn from them.( I think we have acheived a sort of consensus on that) but we do have somewhat divergent tastes and tendencies. Some of us, like HRO and KJ,are incredibly well organized, some of us are more or less eccentric or random in their choices. The various threads are ideas and concerns that we are researching and playing with.

In a way though, thats what our FliPa shelves are. Not just a duplication or a combining of members shelves but recommendations for the books we think are good intro books for the various subjects, authors, genres. The shelves ARE a bit messy right now, hmmm, it seems we could use a librarian....

Kinkajou wrote: "I have to agree with the idea that eventually our choices will be vastly limited in terms of reading. It's a matter of producing only what the majority wants in order to keep the bottom line as fa..."

Im suspicious of this so called "majority", that vague amorphous mass that nobody I know voted for. Certainly the bottom line in this system is, who profits. "to keep the bottom line as fat as possible"
But I am not sure if it is acually the publishers that are the villains in this plot.

After all, publishing was always a risky business, and these days it's totally threatened. Books are under attack. If printed books become obsolete then so do publishers, and bookstores.Unless they become glorified coffee shops like Chapters. Publishers have been losing their shirts and supporting writers prbably since the printing press. In some cases publishers have stuck their necks out for writers of indisputable genius, and sometimes they fail to recognize it. And sometimes a publishishing company is set up so that the publishers only produce what their board or committee decides.

Another thing to consider is that publishing is only the middle point of an authors journey into circulation. Distribution and advertising are key factors as to whether the book makes a splash or a wave, or sinks into obscurity with the thousands of others barely making a ripple.

So whose profiting here? Not the author, not the publisher, not the reader. The distributors perhaps, who decide what gets distributed? Who holds the big purse?

The distributor point is a good one. I am always amazed why the English pay more for Food than in Europe, even after £ 30% fall against the € in recent years.

The arguement is often conveniently 'transport costs', but the continent is only 25 miles away.

I think it is the middlemen (distributors) and the power of the supermarkets to maintain their margins.

I note that Fruit and Veg even in the local market is expensive, but this could be a local issue (possibly the city council rents) for Cambridge, as we have been able to purchase much more cheaply even 50 miles out.

I would be interested to see the breakdown of the cover price as to who gets what.

I love my Kindle. I've gone thru 4 this year (my 5th should arrive today).

It took a few reading months to really get the hang of it. I can't read newspapers or magazines on it because my style for reading those is too non-linear.

This year, I have bought several hundred ebooks (many free or cheap but regrettably not all by a long shot). I've also bought a shocking number of hard copy books-mostly through library sales and bookswap.

I totally prefer to read poetry & philosophy in hard copy. Although now that I've learned how to take notes on the Kindle, my range of reading there has increased.

I'm kindle-addicted. I totally love it & the infamously seductive Whispernet. I call my Kindle Lady Grace (well, the last one anyway). But when it crashes I'm covered.

Kindles are fun & another way to access books. And even with the prices increasing the cost remains cheaper for a book I'm willing to buy new, even paperbacks.

What contemporary literary scene? There is no one literary mecca anymore, and it's no holds barred and nothing too secret. Theres a multitude of voices from everywhere, and essentially this has got to be a good thing. However, unless we are careful, we can feel so inundated and overwhelmed that it all seems like just so much noise.

I'm definately a contrary too, as are many of us here.
However, I am not quite as pessimistic as Kink. Thats because some of the best books I have ever read are by contemporary authors. If you check my favorites shelf, you will see, alongside Herman Hesse and Dostoevsky and Knut Hamsun, I have Michael Greenwood,James Hillman, Michael Ventura, Michel Crummy,Thomas King, Marge Piercy, Doris Lessing, Nancy Huston, AA Attanasio, Stephen Lawhead, Marisa Pesl, Mark Helprin,Timothy Findly, Orhan Pamuk. well, check out my favorites shelf, because the list is too long.

I don't pay any attention to the NYT list or even much attention to the lists here on GR. I'm not even sure how my favorites rate against the headliners... Interesting how I was able to resist the avalanche of S King and only after the group discussion finally got a copy of one. Too much hype I find a big turn off.

Ice, if you do a breakdown of where the money goes and how price is determined, you have to take into account that price fluctuates. We have plenty of books in the store that started off pricey, now going for Half price and less. The few really expensive books in our store are very old and rare and the authors long beyond benefiting.

Ellie, you have written the most eloquent defense of the reading machine. I will need a bit of time to process...

From the bottom up (so to speak) what are the royalty rates for authors. Are they Net Price % or fixed in nominal terms. I ask myself this question, so I can research it.

It took me a long time to jump on the eReader "bandwagon", but the reason I like my Kindle is simple: I travel a lot (sometimes 2-3 weeks at a time), and can't bear to think I might not have enough reading material with me. I don't want to feel pressured to find a book to buy somewhere if I run out. Needless to say, I could not consider being without something to read for even one day :) So now I just load up my Kindle (with mostly freebies): problem solved!

Having said that, I do still prefer a print book and find it difficult to resist buying them at any opportunity (especially those library sales - love them!)

Magdelanye wrote: "What contemporary literary scene? There is no one literary mecca anymore, and it's no holds barred and nothing too secret. Theres a multitude of voices from everywhere, and essentially this has got..."

I don't particularly think people should ebook-I've discovered it as a toy & have lots of fun with it. I also download ebooks to my pc so I can read while checking email (mostly GR, naturaly). I have a Kindle app on my Blackberry so if (heaven forbid) I start to feel bored or must sit thru some really awful meeting-voila, a book.

I love the "book as object" but that's a separate category, I think, than the book as narrative or source of information. It's an illusion to think that any form of narrative is "real" in a concrete sense. Words are not "real" in that way, not tangible although it feels as though we can see them, taste them, hold them. They're signs pointing towards something else, Writers lay them against, string them alongside, pile them up, manipulate these signs in various ways and create realities. Maybe the only reality we can know is the one mediated by and ultimately created by words.

How we access the words-I think that is a flexible option. I wouldn't want to only ebook. But I do have fun with it & I'm totally addicted (without it actually supplanting my other addictions which wouldn't be so bad since it's very clutter free & I have enough books to make at least a dozen homes "homey".

looking for something else, I finally found this old discussion. now wondering if people have shifted their opinions.... Ellie, do you still love yours? how many have you gone through by now?
Ice, what's your latest stand on this?

Magdelanye wrote: "looking for something else, I finally found this old discussion. now wondering if people have shifted their opinions.... Ellie, do you still love yours? how many have you gone through by now?
Ice, ..."

I still love my Kindle. I use it primarily for novels and biographies. For poetry, I need a hard copy. Also often for pedagogical/philosophical material. For poetry, I need that white space and for some reason to hold it. And for the other I need to be able to make notes and flip back and forth. An I can't read periodicals at all-again, I don't read them in a linear fashion so...

I've had my Fire Kindle for almost a year. My other Kindle is 5 or 6 years old and going strong (I gave it to my daughter). I finally realized that I was overcharging and thereby killing them, poor things.

I find I'm split about even in what I read electronically and what I read in paper.

I definitely like that I can sit in a parked car or at night with the lights off and read my Kindle. (But then, in bright light, I prefer the paper-or my old Kindle)

I like my Kindle, but I am not keen to use it for reading, I would rather substitute a shirt for a book in the packing.

Ice wrote: "I like my Kindle, but I am not keen to use it for reading, I would rather substitute a shirt for a book in the packing."

Does that mean you take less books when you travel? And if you don't use your Kindle for reading, what do you use it for? Do you have a Fire?

a good doorstop maybe ;+ )

The Kindle is mainly used for email and internet, half the packing area is books and jigsaws !