Reading . Actual printed on paper books .

[gimme30]

No Kindle or device will ever compare with the pleasure of a real book held reverently in my hands

^^This, so much. Leather bound, gilded edges...kids these days have no idea what they're missing. IF they read at all.

@Innesfan that pic almost (I love New Yorkers, but there's too many of 'em) makes me want to fly out there and set up camp in that store. In Denver we have The Tattered Cover, which is exactly what you'd expect in a good bookstore but without the history. I think they opened in 70, or 71? It's really the only 'proper' bookstore in the whole state.

Curious what you guys have for libraries. Ours have mostly turned into "media centers." Sterile, brightly lit and completely impersonal places. They might have a few actual books, but you can have your choice of any bastardized coffee drink your manbun-capped little head might desire.

For those of you that re-read things, don't you feel like you're missing out? I mean, there's so many books and so little time! I desperately want to read The Agony & The Ecstasy again but there are so many on my want-to-read list I don't feel like I can waste the time.

 

[GaryE]

I agree on the smell of a good book, but then again, I'm part dog.

It's a doomed tech, and it isn't coming back. Reading is going to be electronic going forward. The essence is the same but the experience is shifting as far as the sensuality goes. The history book I'm reading now has to be approached respectfully, because it's from a cheap edition - a paperback great historians series bought second hand in 1980 something. The pages could snap. They're brittle.
The content is brilliant, but I have to read carefully, turning the pages so they don't fall out. I won't read this one again... but the book itself is a metaphor.

With the sometimes obscure bands I like, things from 50 years ago are only just now being digitized. I read somewhere that about 20% of the records ever produced are available in a digital form, which effectively means 80% stand to be lost. A few strike me as not going to be missed, but that's just my taste and it shouldn't decide anything. I expect it's similar with books, and I'd be surprised if a lot of these older histories, a subject not popular in the world the story they analyze got us into, are not available except to specialists now.

There was a burst of aquarium literature in the 1990s that isn't available in digital form. Since our hobby is in decline, it will likely disappear and not show up online. Second hand bookstores were useful for finding offbeat interests that the internet sees as uncommercial.

 

[Back in the fold]

I disagree Gary . Printed books are not a doomed tech . You are right that it isn’t coming back and the reason is , it’s never left . Real printed on paper books will always have an audience even though that audience has shrunk . There are some things that will never be electronic, you will have to search out print . Bookstores may be in decline too but they will never disappear entirely . Vinyl came back ! Did you ever expect that ? There are still now publishers and there always will be . I would gouge out my eyes and jump off a cliff if all I had to read was a screen .

 

[Back in the fold]

Curious what you guys have for libraries. Ours have mostly turned into "media centers." Sterile, brightly lit and completely impersonal places. They might have a few actual books, but you can have your choice of any bastardized coffee drink your manbun-capped little head might desire.

My local library was demolished ten years ago and the new one is exactly that - sterile , brightly lit and impersonal . The charm and the ambiance are gone . Lots of computers to gaze at like a moron but thankfully they’ve saved the books .
“ manbun - capped little head “ . Thank you so much for that phrase . It has just the degree of disdain that I have for manbuns .

 

[plebian]

Ironically, one of my earliest experiences with the Internet (when it was text only, green on black, delivered via modem) was with a local library. My memory is hazy, but as I recall you could search for a title and reserve it for pickup.

The Internet was once a marvelous tool that has become, as they say, well and truly enshitified. While it's still very useful, the amount of pure crap you have to sort through is sometimes daunting. As for physical space, I never liked libraries. I found them uncomfortable. I really did value the free access they provided to knowledge and art though.

 

[fishorama]

I'm a reader too. Mostly light mystery, sci-fi & fantasy books, my "junk food". I loved the "Master & Commander" books. I told my bro I had the "Hand of God" thing & he knew exactly what that meant. I like historical novels & sometimes have to read more to understand if they are fact or poetic license (usually a mixture). A nice vacation & tax write-off for authors too.

Growing up we always went to the library. We sometimes got to buy books from school sales when we were young. My mother had a few art & ancient history books. Lots of pictures that helped when we went to museums & on vacations. We also went to university travelogues, slide shows of cool places people had gone, before History, Nat Geo & Travel channels.

As a teen, Camus, Hesse & Tolkien were almost required reading, lol. Almost over my head.

Books helped open my eyes to so many new & old worlds! A later childhood favorite was "Congo Kitabu" by Jean-Pierre Hallet. A true biographical story set in the Belgian Congo & other African areas. Pygmy & Matusi cultures...& clueless Christian missionaries knitting hats for babies while trying to convert the "natives". There were also South American explorer's accounts I can't recall ATM. Wow!! Racist & sexist in so many ways back in those days, but real! A big impact on my world understanding of those times.

My dad liked more hard-boiled detective novels; my mom introduced me to Andre Norton & sci-fi. The Flashman books are a fun look at several historic events by George MacDonald Fraser. He was "at" every major happening (Waterloo, etc) for many years. Funny too, but gruesome.

My complaint is our library has many paperback books now. I know they're less expensive but harder to read. Some are old "standard size" 1s that take some work to hold open. Some are larger & not so difficult to read. That & my old library hard someone who liked the same books I did. She either wore excessive perfume or spritzed the books, ugh!

 

[gimme30]

I'm a reader too.

Are not. Your tablet's broken.

 

[GaryE]

Libraries are easy targets for the cost cutting people. In the school board I worked for, books were targets. It was easier to have a media centre, which opened up the space for other purposes. The school librarians worked hard to clear out the books and set up the media, and then like cashiers who send you to the self checkout, lost their jobs as a result. The more libraries mirrored what you could do at home, the less people went to them. That gave the never leave the office people the stats that lets on the ground staff be cut and expertise be lost.

I've already mentioned how the main branch of our city library is beautiful with its views out over a working harbour. It has far too much empty space and it does reduce its book offerings on a regular basis to make that worse. It's well used - with lots of students needing a place to study, tutors at work, homeless people warming up, and kids being read to. When I go, I often can't find a place to sit. I hope the slash and burn business lobby doesn't grab the space - it's one well used.

My favourite library thought was when Walter and Albertina Sisulu were invited to speak at the Provincial legislature, after the fall of Apartheid. Walter Sisulu had been in prison with Nelson Mandela for 25 years, and both were people of great courage. I was their driver when they were in town, and once the work was done, they asked to see the local library. People from communities where books are banned like to see reading, I guess.

We were walking around and we passed a room where children's books were being read out loud. They asked to go in. I introduced them to the people who were organizing the readings, who were in awe. In their time, these were important international figures. Our guests asked to read to the kids, and for a couple of hours as kids came and went, I listened to their soft accents and saw how happy they were just reading oddball little books to oddball little kids.

That doesn't happen in a media centre.

 

[gwand]

Doctors once made house calls. Now they don’t nor will they ever again. Human culture is in constant flux, sometimes for the better, many times for the worse. It’s a reality. Culture never stands still. Wishing for the bygone days won’t help.

 

[Back in the fold]

The Internet was once a marvelous tool that has become, as they say, well and truly enshitified. While it's still very useful, the amount of pure crap you have to sort through is sometimes daunting.

Taken a gander at Facebook lately ? Some , or maybe all , of the stupidest and mindless and flat out false garbage you can think of . AI has made it even worse . When I was in printing I learned how to make composite negatives and I can spot phony pictures a mile away . They’re getting better and may eventually be indistinguishable from the Real McCoy but for now I can see the fakery and most of what you see on Facebook is doctored up .

 

[Innesfan]

Our local library hasn't changed much.

 

[GaryE]

Nice library. OUR library has rooms like that behind the kitchen. So there.

Or maybe not.

Do they have the Innes book?

 

[gwand]

Nice library. OUR library has rooms like that behind the kitchen. So there.

Or maybe not.

Do they have the Innes book?

Innesfan is spoofing us. That pic is an image of the Library at Alexandria.

 

[Innesfan]

Nice library. OUR library has rooms like that behind the kitchen. So there.

Or maybe not.

Do they have the Innes book?

Hmmm...I never looked. I will. I've been meaning to head over there to see the current exhibit, "Treasures of the NY Public Library," which features the rarest of the rare in their collection of 56 million-plus items. So I'll look then. If they don't, I'll bequeath them one of mine.

 

[gwand]

Hmmm...I never looked. I will. I've been meaning to head over there to see the current exhibit, "Treasures of the NY Public Library," which features the rarest of the rare in their collection of 56 million-plus items. So I'll look then. If they don't, I'll bequeath them one of mine.

Check out the Renoir exhibit at the Morgan Library. My wife was there Sunday and was impressed.