Value of Books

andyrobyn

I have an Ipad now and do read on it - mostly academic articles and I have read a novel when travelling as it was convenient.
My children still love books and will read a book in bed at night, despite spending a lot of time using computers throughout the day.
I wonder about the future of books.
This quote from Eudora Welty, the American author of the wonderful short story The Optimist's Daughter sums it up for me - we have this on a plaque in our study


It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them—with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them.

genkaku

When I was at Doubleday, there was an editor who was once quoted as saying, approximately, "I rank stories among the most needful things. Food, shelter, sex, stories ... something like that." He may have been biased by profession, but I think history proves his point.

Invincible_summer

Although I love the portability of tablet computers/e-book readers, there's something about the tactility of a physical book that makes it more memorable.

etherea

I will never, ever give up reading real books. The feel, the smell, the turning over of the pages.......everything. Going into a bookshop, a real bookshop, where you can sit for hours and read, investigate and choose as opposed to the "get you in, get your money, get you out" places that have the audacity to call themselves book shops, really does it for me. I don't even mind if it's old and smelly with a flea ridden sofa as long as there are books. I love books!

Cinorjer

I have both a nook and of course a "real" book library. I prefer "real" books, but buy more ebooks now. When this evolution started and public libraries started losing their funding and closing, I saw the problem right away. It turns reading back into a hobby of the upper class. Books are low tech and relatively low cost. They can be passed around and read by many people, and sold used cheaply. Before mass printing and public libraries, books were a luxury the poor couldn't afford. They might have had a Bible, passed down through generations. Those great works of literature from the previous centuries? Most people never heard of them and never read them even if they could read, because the book was something only people with money could afford.

Now we once again are moving to a time where poor people who can't afford the computers and expensive electronics won't have access to new works of literature, because most new books are not even sold in a paper-and-ink form anymore. Free libraries are being cut back and closed down as relics not necessary by cash strapped governments.

etherea

Support your local library! In my town we have 3 branches and 2 beach libraries. The central branch which is my closest is always full......peeps choosing and reading books, choosing DVDs and CDs, studying, reading newspapers and magazines, using the internet, just keeping warm......you get the picture. You can do all of this and play chess at the beach libraries!