Is there any point to collecting books?

[Vince W]

I have had a terrible habit of keeping every book I buy. Growing up each book represented all my pocket money so getting rid of them would be an anathema.

 

[Extollager]

So far I've bought books and have never read one on a Kindle, etc. Between my own books and those I get from the library, I'm more than amply provided with reading.

However, publishers maydo harm to the love of books if they keep issuing ones that reek of cheapness. I'll name names, a British hardcover edition of Shapiro's new book on King Lear and the year 1606. The publisher is Faber and Faber. The book lacks heft -- it doesn't weigh what a book of its size should weigh. The paper seems remarkably cheap. The brand new copy I inspected already had a torn page. The paper was something like that of children's construction paper. I guess I first noticed this cheap-paper problem in one of Kingsley Amis's novels published in the 1980s by Hutchinson. Are British publishers notable for using shoddy paper?

It seems to me (could be wrong) that it was back in the 1970s or so that publishers went in for issuing, as hardcover books, books that were in effect paperbacks with stuff covers: they economized by ceasing to issue books bound from sewn signatures, and went with pages glued to the spine of the book. Book club editions were like this much earlier. I'm glad that some art books and so on are still issued with books well made as I've indicated. These are typically printed in eastern Asia.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

That sentiment kind of gets lost with old and scabby second-hand books with broken spines, water-damaged covers, and stained pages.

Nope. It doesn't for me. The older, more battered, loved the more I love it. Some of my favourite books are covered in water stains...

@Ray McCarthy - the magazine market remains pretty resilient, in general, certainly in comparison to newspapers. But advertising props magazines up and that model translates well to shared internet and paper mediums.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

the magazine market remains pretty resilient,

A huge number of Technical, electronics, programming, retail computers mags are gone. Almost all. Also many obnoxious "lad's mags" have closed.
Easons and others now have a very narrow range compared to 20 years ago. Local shops only have an even limited kind of glossy fashion and other browse and dump magazine. Easons are only more dedicated "newsagent" left, over a dozen newsagents I knew here since 1983 have closed. Only shops more selling sweets and groceries still have some magazines. These are now outnumbered by UK & Irish papers. Virtually all the traditional UK comics gone.

Maybe Norn Ireland is different. We are down to I think six bookshops (two are Easons) and two rely heavily on school book sales (school books is an annual racket here). Third Largest Irish City.

I think a certain kind of magazine is surviving.

 

[Mad Alice]

I like the cover art on books. You really can't sit and look at a cover in detail on an e-reader.

If it were actually possible to get every book I really love to read upon an e-reader, and if e-readers were more hand friendly in their dimensions, lighter in weight , less awkward, less prone to damage, and truly reader friendly.

I.e. (Silly things take ages to ages to turn a page, terribly distracting. And when will they make the little buggers waterproof and sand proof? The beach read and bubble bath book has to be traditional otherwise. With a built in solar panel to recharge the battery like a calculator, and a back up mini crank generator unit, like those squeeze charge /winding charge led lights..?? And what about music? Its electronic, add a radio or microphone mp3player for audio books and recording notes and lectures. And what is this silly bookmark thing? I like to reread a bit of the before when I restart.. What about an editor built in so if you don't like to read the really scary parts, or the sex/ swearing bits, you can have your personalized version, even write your own ending if the author went and jumped the shark...)

My main dislike is the available library. Its one one thousandth of the actual catalogue of books. I can never find something I truly adore, only should reads and free-fills and other intellectual time wasters.

Really badly written multi book collections (zombie werewolf jammiebun apocalyptic purple prose that can make you want to track down the writer and slap them across the face demanding, "what were you THINKING??!!" (I swear reading that kind of thing can lead to ABI spectrum disorders. ) ) seems to provide much of the eBook deluge.

But midlist delights are sadly absent, as are vintage editions of books. Only the modernized dumbed down latest version is available.

So if you are a vintage cookbook afficianado, or delight in the quirky unpolitically correct language of turn of the century self help and activity books, you are out of luck in the eBook market.
Really old wizard math tricks? Dale Carnegie's pre post it cue card system? How to keep house with cinnamon and lemon? All lost to the ereader world. There the published volume reigns supreme for the oddities and specialized bits.

I truly believe that were we to give up on books as a medium we would be surrendering both our knowledge of history and culture and even the freedom of intellectual dominion of ourselves into the hands of uncaring corporate entities.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A huge number of Technical, electronics, programming, retail computers mags are gone. Almost all. Also many obnoxious "lad's mags" have closed.

The lads' mags were always a product of a certain time that I don't think anyone expected to embed long term, especially once the internet started to take a hold. A lot of technical have gone.

Easons and others now have a very narrow range compared to 20 years ago. Local shops only have an even limited kind of glossy fashion and other browse and dump magazine. Easons are only more dedicated "newsagent" left, over a dozen newsagents I knew here since 1983 have closed. Only shops more selling sweets and groceries still have some magazines. These are now outnumbered by UK & Irish papers. Virtually all the traditional UK comics gone.

If you look at the range available, it's still huge. Easons in Donegal Place have a similar sized news run as the one I managed when I was there. (Although it's not as big as the old Castlecourt, but it was massive.) The problem is less about the magazine range but the outlets and that's mainly because there is, and always has been, very low margins in magazines. They have always been there to get footfall into a shop rather than generate profit (and because of the returns model, anyone thinking they can make money selling only papers and magazines are deluded.) The supermarkets took that footfall by stocking the main titles, but the big killer was the cheap card shops. Prior to that, cards were the margin-leader. A good card run made profit, now that's gone. So the reduction of outlets has little to do with the range of magazines available (and, frankly, carrying a huge range is very specialist, time consuming and dirty) but to do with the wider model of that sort of shop.

Maybe Norn Ireland is different.

The north always had a stronger magazine model, partly because of the price of magazines in the South compared to other stock, and partly because the south's strength and depth has always been in books.

 

[Nick B]

, and if e-readers were more hand friendly in their dimensions, lighter in weight , less awkward, less prone to damage, and truly reader friendly.
I.e. (Silly things take ages to ages to turn a page, terribly distracting. And when will they make the little buggers waterproof and sand proof?

My phone (z5) is my ereader. Very light, very comfortable, waterproof, dustproof, instant page turning. I havnt managed to damage a sony phone yet. I can read in the dark, the light, big text, small text, black, white, sepia pager, the font i like. The cover art is beautiful in high definition too. I make a point of always looking at the art. I can bookmark where i like, leave notes, highlight favourite quotes...
I keep hundreds of books in my pocket.

And I can even make phone calls.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Books are old and new friends waiting for you to welcome them in.

The older, more battered, loved the more I love it.

I have a book by my side now that feels like I invited a tramp into my home. I'm not particularly enamoured with the story, though...

However, I recently read a second-hand copy of Gore Vidal's Julian, and felt embarrassed that such a great book should have such stained pages. I might have to buy a new edition one day, so it can look as pristine as what's inside. Or the ebook, so I can more easily search through and check the various references.

 

[Mad Alice]

My phone (z5) is my ereader. Very light, very comfortable, waterproof, dustproof, instant page turning. I havnt managed to damage a sony phone yet. I can read in the dark, the light, big text, small text, black, white, sepia pager, the font i like. The cover art is beautiful in high definition too. I make a point of always looking at the art. I can bookmark where i like, leave notes, highlight favourite quotes...
I keep hundreds of books in my pocket.

And I can even make phone calls.

But have you tried to read it after dropping it in the tub?

 

[Nick B]

But have you tried to read it after dropping it in the tub?

Yes, it is waterproof, up to a metre deep aparently. I had to dip it in water to test it. Because, why be waterproof if you cant test it?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Easons in Donegal Place have a similar sized news run as the one I managed when I was there.

Last in there probably in 1970s when I was in BBC. Easons in Limerick is the only one I know now.

The supermarkets took that footfall by stocking the main titles, but the big killer was the cheap card shops.

Even Lidl now has almost all same magazines as local village shop. Which a pathetically narrow range. I expect Tesco, Lidl and Dunnes bypass Eason? I don't know. Musgrave's owned shops (three brands) are now biggest grocery here by outlets and volume, but stock only slightly more range than Lidl.
Easons control price of all imported mags to local shops except for "comag" imports. They terrifically hedge currency. At least that's the excuse, when you compensate for VAT differences.

 

[Foxbat]

I collect books by default. By that, I mean that I don't go out to deliberately collect books, it just kind of happens (same with DVDs...I don't know how many of those I have - the last time I tried to count, I gave up at three thousand). I have a few hundred books but every couple of years or so, I go through them and ask myself will I ever read this again? If the answer is no, then I put it in a box (along with the many others) and give them to a charity shop. I've now started doing the same with DVDs.

I quite like ebooks because they don't take up any space. I enjoy reading on my Kindle Fire because - with failing eyesight- I don't have to worry too much about illumination late at night. I do have my concerns about how far into the future I will be able to use it.

Like vinyl in music, I believe paper will always have a place.

 

[Extollager]

Some Chrons people may want to factor in their own mortality. For the past few years I have tried (intermittently) to remember that for someone in late middle age the accumulation of an enormous backlog doesn't necessarily make sense, and have slowed my book buying (which surged in the late 1990s-early oughts when I was ordering books via the Internet for the first time). I suspect that, if I had a Kindle, I would be less likely to buy books that I would mean to get to "someday" and would pretty much limit myself to books I wanted to read right away. So that could be a good thing.

I really have pretty well used up the space I have available for books. Not very many of them, but some of them remain in boxes, and I've resorted to double-shelving a little.

 

[svalbard]

After an initial bit of doubt I have bought into the reading all my books on a kindle. The beauty of it is that my kindle account is linked to all of my devices and I can pretty much read anything, anywhere at anytime.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The beauty of it is that my kindle account is linked to all of my devices and I can pretty much read anything, anywhere at anytime

Only works for either stuff bought from Amazon, or got else where and in-advisably you uploaded it on their server (no thanks!), their so called cloud.
So I don't use that feature. I have all my books backed up on my own stuff. I tend to only read on the Kindle or Kobo (The reading App on Android wants to call home all the time ... no thanks Amazon, so deleted Kindle app from phone and tablet. I never turn on the wireless on the Kindle or Kobo, doesn't need it and runs battery down. Even transferring many books via USB is quick. If I do buy and eBook from Amazon I select download to PC and not direct to Kindle. Then I have a backup.

I can read any non-DRM book on any device. No need for expensive, unreliable and privacy busting Internet. USB cable or local network.

People close their "clouds". Or have accidents with them (Google, Azure, Amazon all have had major outages in last year).

 

[Foxbat]

I have all my books backed up on my own stuff. I tend to only read on the Kindle or Kobo (The reading App on Android wants to call home all the time ... no thanks Amazon, so deleted Kindle app from phone and tablet. I never turn on the wireless on the Kindle or Kobo, doesn't need it and runs battery down. Even transferring many books via USB is quick. If I do buy and eBook from Amazon I select download to PC and not direct to Kindle. Then I have a backup.

I do exactly the same. I think, even if I were to decide to use The Cloud, I'd still download via USB and keep back-ups.
Never trust anybody but yourself.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

You can't smell an ebook.

 

[svalbard]

Only works for either stuff bought from Amazon, or got else where and in-advisably you uploaded it on their server (no thanks!), their so called cloud.
So I don't use that feature. I have all my books backed up on my own stuff. I tend to only read on the Kindle or Kobo (The reading App on Android wants to call home all the time ... no thanks Amazon, so deleted Kindle app from phone and tablet. I never turn on the wireless on the Kindle or Kobo, doesn't need it and runs battery down. Even transferring many books via USB is quick. If I do buy and eBook from Amazon I select download to PC and not direct to Kindle. Then I have a backup.

I can read any non-DRM book on any device. No need for expensive, unreliable and privacy busting Internet. USB cable or local network.

People close their "clouds". Or have accidents with them (Google, Azure, Amazon all have had major outages in last year).

I have never had an issue with Amazon or its App. Best things since the slice pan as far as I can see.

 

[Vince W]

You can't smell an ebook.

You can. In the bath. It smells like burning.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I prefer to buy physical books. I got a dedicated eInk eReader (6" Kindle Paper White, then a 9.7" Kindle DXG) for three main reasons:

1. Databooks, data sheets etc. Saves paper
2. Drafts and even final versions of my writing. I've saved nearly 30,000 A4 sheets!
3. stuff only on eBook, I found Gutenberg texts (in ANY format, in ANY application) a pain to read on tablet, phone or Laptop. Couldn't read a decent sized novel. There are over 46,000 of those now.

I have bought four books from authors here and read as eBooks, nearly half of my bought eBooks, and bought several texts on writing as eBooks suggested by @Brian Turner

My latest eReader is a Kobo Aura H2O (HD, 6.8"). It's allegedly waterproof to 1m or 3m depending which blurb you read.

Three of my sons, a grandson, daughter, daughter-in-law and wife now have various generations of eInk Kindles and though they all prefer to buy real books (one son buys 1st edition HBs of his favourite authors), none would part with Kindle. My daughter mostly buys eBooks as she has run out of space for physical books in her house.

never had an issue with Amazon or its App

I've no data plan on my phone.
I've bought eBooks from Amazon, they are fine on dedicated Kindle as wireless is always off. I buy lots of stuff from Amazon. But I'm not going to use their so called cloud (or anyone else's server unless it's a private hosting account.)