"Against all my own prejudices, all my own pride in the history and tradition of the printed word," said Johnson, playing on the words in the title, "I liked it." He added:
I liked holding it in one hand, having it always with me, and customizing my fonts and screen color. I liked reading it on the train without advertising my tastes; I could have been reading "Tropic of Cancer" or "The Firm."
I really liked reading it in bed without the encumbrance of a book light.
I liked it all so much, I've moved on to Austen's "Persuasion" and am, frankly, halfway annoyed at having to take time away from that to write this. What comeuppance will the vain spendthrift Sir Walter receive, and will his deserving daughter Anne find satisfaction?
There's something important going on here. It's subtle, and it involves a lot more than English major-y talk about a 19th-century English novelist. I think the people who understand it (and I don't claim to understand it all) are going to be the ones who flourish as the communications industry goes through the most radical changes we've seen since Johannes Gutenberg invented moveable type in 1457.
Johnson catches the essence of it when he says:
The experience taught me that a book is not what I had thought it to be. It is not, in any important sense, typeface, paper stock or cover art. A book is, foremost, the arrangement of words in sequence, and they are, to borrow a buzz-phrase from the digital folk, platform agnostic.
In other words, the content of a book doesn't depend on its platform. You could carve "Pride and Prejudice" into the side of a pumpkin, and it would still be "Pride and Prejudice." (You'd have to use a lot of pumpkins, though.) What's tricky is to know what media -- platform -- to use for what message, and how to use it to the best advantage.
8 comments:
I think that downloading books to ypur cell phone is a pretty good idea. As long as we as Americans dont abuse it like we do everyhing else. Also, we need to be albe to teach our children to read books at the same time. We tend to trade in great things for other things. As a society I hope we can deal with this change.
I just dont know why we need to make evertything "easier".
I do like his definition of books now. It is a new extensive definition
At this stage, book publishers who open up online text options are just broadening their customer bases. There are always going to be people who like the tactile sensation of turning the pages of a book and inhaling the dust and mold spores. There are always going to be people who appreciate scanning a computer or phone screen and having permanent eye-strain.
In one sense, the electronic books are a way of preserving history—having the text of centuries-old books (which are now housed in the back rooms of the Smithsonian and can only be handled by select researchers wearing white gloves) available to the general public is a pretty cool idea.
History has a way of sticking around. I don’t think textbooks are going out in my lifetime.
I am just going to agree with Lauren Burke instead of making this page redundant.
"At this stage, book publishers who open up online text options are just broadening their customer bases."
Over the years, pretty much everthing we use in everyday life, has turned to technology. And continuing into the future, our lives will be advanced even further with the advances of technology.
One author explained, " the literature of our immediate future will be electronic. Our scientific and technical writings, our journalism, and our stories: all will be written and read on screens. This explanation tells how the country kind of depends on the future of technology, no matter how hard we try to break from it.
On the other hand, we shouln't always depend on technology, because we all know that it's not always dependable.
We sound like a buncha fortune cookies.
I think that anything that helps people broaden their horizons is good. Whether it's from a paperback copy, or from a cell phone. The person reading the book on their cell phone is getting the same information as somebody who would go to the library and read it. The world is always going to be changing with new technology, why slow it down and limit these books to just paperbacks and hardbacks. Why not put them online and make them available for downloading?
I like the dialog here!
Seems to me like we're dialoging with the author. (Is "dialoging" a verb? I guess it is now. Should it be?) And each other.
Even at the risk of sounding like fortune cookies!
Allowing people to download books too their PDAs or Cellphones or any kind of handhelds and computers is a way to broaden the range of costumers and more business. Not everyone likes to go out and buy a book, in present day virtually everyone lives by their cellphones or handhelds and computers, and having the option to read a book on your phone is a wonderful idea. Although, there are many downsides that go along with it, but there are also positive ones.
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