Hello all -
I trust everyone is well and working diligently on reading good things and writing better things.
That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. In the midst of a lot of turmoil in my life right now, I’ve started a new project and it’s taking me and my writing into some new territory. The research on the subject has been extensive and seems to spread faster and further than a summer thunderstorm. But it’s been exciting and I like the thunder and lightning.
The project started out as a joke (you’re already in on it, you just don’t know it yet) and is growing into a novel – a big novel. I plan on releasing it in parts on a serial basis.
As a result of the research, I’ve been buying quite a pile of books and gaining an impressive library on the subject. Some are e-books and some are book-books.
You know I love my Kindle and also my Kindle for PC, but when doing research they just don’t compare to working with the real McCoy. Being able to thumb through a book from cover to cover, searching for a phrase or picture and spreading books out all over the table or floor (whatever works) and jumping back and forth from one to the other with ease brings back warm memories of years in school and at study with my love affair for real, paper, marked up, musty smelling books, for it truly is a love affair. After using e-book media for a while, you tend to forget that part of it and you lose the ‘feel‘ of the book. I don’t mean the actual feel of paper in your hands, (if you miss that then wrap paper around your Kindle) but I mean the internal ‘feel’ of holding a book. I know – it’s all mental, but then, isn’t everything? Trust me on this, hold a favorite book in your hands and the memories start to flood back in. You never forget them. You find yourself cradling it, stroking it and holding it with affection and at times your emotions for the memories inside cause you to smile and squeeze it tight. Pick up your Kindle and it’s not there. I have to conjure up a ‘book‘ from the ‘library’ first and then what do I visualize? (I’m afraid to squeeze my Kindle anyway – don’t know what pressing all those buttons would do and who knows what I’ll be reading in the next instant – if anything.)
In an e-book, the words are only electrons imposed on a screen that are there one instant and gone the next. The words are there, and the meaning is there, but the ‘feeling’ is missing. When you ‘turn’ the page – the previous page is gone.
Think I’m wrong? Maybe, but try this – go buy your favorite book of all times as an e-book and then read it. See if it’s the same. I can’t speak for you – but it isn’t for me. I love Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”. I think it has some of the greatest prose ever penned and I have three copies of it. I went to read it on the Kindle and after reading about it being the best of times and the worse of times five times and not being able to get past it, I put it away. Maybe it just doesn’t work for the special things – like putting old wine in a new bottle.
Like I said, I love my Kindle and an e-book is a great way to sit back and enjoy a good read on the beach, in your car, in the woods or sitting on the porch with a cold one. I enjoy mine immensely and I wouldn’t want all the books I read stacked all over the house neither. But, when all has been said and done, there’s nothing like the feel of a book in your head. It has substance. You can sense the work and the love the author put into the pages that you can’t sense with a Kindle. Being in your hands, you feel you’re a part of it. All the thoughts, joys, angers and swirling emotions felt are then wrapped up in a cover that binds them all together and that you can close and look at repeatedly, many times without knowing you’re doing it.
I hold a Kindle – I caress a book.
Conversely, if I don’t like it, I can throw it across the room in frustration as to how it could have gotten published (can’t do that with my Kindle).
And that’s the joy of a book.
I would be lost without my Kindle. I take it on every trip I make, but you know, in thinking back on it, I usually take a real book along with it too – go figure. I feel bad for those who never really get to know what it means to be in love with a real book. Technology is great – but with it we lose a little bit of our humanity – we lose the ‘feel’ of a book in our hearts. Kinda like buying a great wine – in a cardboard box.
Just a reminder, “Potatoes” is still available for you at no cost until next week. I’m giving it to you as a gift from me. Go toSmashwords and search for “Potatoes dk levick”. Use code # RL64M to buy it free. It’s a short story so it won’t take much of your time away and I think you’ll enjoy it. If you do – then let me know and I’d appreciate it if you’d leave a review on Smashwords and Amazon too.
Until Next Time:
Embrace Life’s Bridges – For they Define Who You Are
dk Levick
Great post, DK! I am an incurable bibliophile and studied the classics in college. I have thousands of books at home, and I never–no matter how bad it is–I never throw away or sell a book. Every book I own is special to me because of my intimate connection with it.
I recently converted to Kindle, but only after discovering that the pages look like real pages, and the textured plastic doesn’t feel cold like a computer. Having finally bought a Kindle, I can’t imagine going anywhere without it, just like you said, but nonetheless I agree with you that it is hard to get that intimate connection with a stream of electrons.
We are living in interesting times as the book industry goes through a major change. I don’t know what the future will look like, and I don’t know how we will learn to attach ourselves to ebooks the way we do to paper books. But remember this: The paperback book itself is a recent invention. Many of our classics were delivered orally, or were written on scraps of parchment, reused and pieced together. The invention of the ebook won’t destroy the classics or our love of the word, any more than they were destroyed by the invention of movable type. It will just be different, that’s all.
Thanks Christy for your great insight. I agree with you on every point. Whether in print – oral or in electronic format – we will always love our books!
I just feel a “special” love for those ones I really cherish and hold.
Glad you enjoyed it and great thoughts.
dk
I appreciate ‘books’ in the tangible sense, but I suspect that is because that is the format in which I learned to read. I remember clearly getting the new textbook in school and having the teacher show us how to break it in, starting in the middle and working our way out to the covers.
Even given that visceral connection to the printed-rather than the electronic-word, I must confess that for me the magic is in the words, not the means of delivery. I live in my interpretation of what the writer creates and Dickens is no less glorious on a Kindle or Nook than in the pages of the six or so copies of his works that grace my shelves. As a writer doing research, I prefer printed for convenience and quick reference, but my Nook reader is a constant companion for most everything else.
All medias bring us words and thoughts. It’s a blessed time we live in to have so many different medias available. Like you, I appreciate both.
thanks for your thoughts and input RL
If traveling by plane these days, you have to shut down all electronics, so having a real book with you is probably a good thing, especially for long flights, and the even longer waits on the tarmac.
I fear the day when electronics will fail us. God help us if the battery companies go on strike.
Thks Too Tall
Thank you for another wonderful article. Where else may anyone get that kind of info in such an ideal approach of writing? I’ve a presentation next week, and I’m at the search for such info.