clearing things up for you since 1969.

[chiller]

It emerges, on Twitter, that books - you know, the paper things that go wrinkly in the bath, are burned by Nazis, hidden by scholars, and whose scent captures the purpose of humanity, viz: that we are the self aware light blinking at the heart of the universe - BOOKS, right, apparently now need to be further defined

Comments

[changeling72]

I like real books. There's nothing like the feel, and smell, of paper and print between one's fingers.

[chiller]

I completely agree. Unfortunately I can't read the sodding things any more.

[chiller]

M.E. has badly affected my vision (it's very common with the condition).

The muscles controlling my lenses tire easily. ME also damages the visual processing part of the brain*, and I get phenomenally strong and long-lived after-images when I look at anything that is high-contrast, meaning that on a bright white page, as I scan line 2 I can still see line 1 - after a few minutes I am looking at layer on layer of lines, not just the line I am actually trying to read

[almostwitty]

That's a shame. Have you tried the Kindle? I think you can fiddle with the contrast settings to find the right solution for you...

[chiller]

Yes, I'm 100% Kindle-devoted. For about five years I couldn't read a book. Now I'm a constant reader again.

But people seem to think that if you read a Kindle it means you somehow think book-books are not so good. Whereas everyone I know who reads a Kindle also loves books - and some of us don't have a choice, which I wish people would realise.

[yiskah]

Yes, exactly! I love my Kindle and I love books, to the extent that I have been known to buy a hardcopy of a book I loved reading on the Kindle. It is slightly ridiculous.

When I was on my last flight to Nairobi I was reading something on my Kindle and some woman who was passing in the aisle looked at it and said dismissively to her companion, "do you like those Kindle things? No, they're AWFUL, aren't they," with the clear implication that no real book-lover would ever use one. I wanted to punch her.

[chiller]

I dislike Kindles in principle, because if society ever goes proper tits up, and we don't still have physical book-books, we're screwed. It worries me. But in terms of usability, they knock book-books into a cocked hat in the same way an iPod laughs in the face of a gramophone.

[salvagejob]

People buy Kindles because they love to read! How can people reading more, more often & more easily, be a bad thing? It really does amaze me how curmudgeonly everyone is about electronic print! I have heard smart, reasonable friends go on about the joys of reading a paper newspaper. They sounded a hundred years old. And these are folks who are environmentally conscious. PLEASE. Do you know how many trees go into a single issue of the New York Times?? I love books and don't have a Kindle, but it's not a war, jeez.

I know I'm preaching to the choir. I'm not directing this at you. But you're so right about people's attitudes!

[chiller]

It's completely inexplicable.

[chiller]

Yes, I've heard about that, but it would only solve the issue of contrast, and not the issue of text size. I find the Kindle really solves the problem for me as I can whack the text size up to whatever-works-for-me-on-any-given-day, which varies quite a lot. Some days I can't even read it set on massive! Depends how tired my muscles are.