"We are removing their faces, collecting their skins, we are reeling the liars in."

[greygirlbeast]

And here it is Friday, and only seven days until we leave for Portland (and that's counting today). So things are getting weird and hectic. I've never been to Portland, but Spooky lived there for three years, 1996-1999, and has tremendous trepidation about returning. So, we're coping with that, too. But I am not a traveling writer. There seem to be

Comments

[nykolus]

two things i do when i get my hands on a new (or old) book: feel it and smell it. try doing that with an ereader.

[greygirlbeast]

two things i do when i get my hands on a new (or old) book: feel it and smell it. try doing that with an ereader.

Smell is a very important part of it for me, too. I fear the day when the smell of pages is forgotten.

[nykolus]

new book smell is one thing. but old book smell... you just can't beat that.

[greygirlbeast]

new book smell is one thing. but old book smell... you just can't beat that.

I wonder if BPAL has managed that one yet?

[ashlyme]

I sympathise with the wearing of personae, though I'm not very good at it. I can be pretty chatty with people I've trusted for years or online, but I *loathe* enforced contact with people.

Wuthering Bites sounds bad (and I've never liked Austin) but it could be worse. I just imagined a novel where Kate Bush took on vampires and zombies!

[greygirlbeast]

I just imagined a novel where Kate Bush took on vampires and zombies!

Actually, that might be okay. Well, not as a book, but as an album, and videos...if she'd not sort of lost what once made her so wonderful.

[from_ashes]

Before my Nook, I would state that I could not live without books. Now I just say that I cannot live without my Nook. In my mind, it's the same thing. I always have reading material (i.e., books) handy. Otherwise, life would royally suck. And considering the summer, I've had, books (on my Nook) have been a much-needed escape.

So I think maybe that's what we're referring to. Life without reading, would be a life not worth living. It's just now, I have all of my books handy in one little "box."

[greygirlbeast]

So I think maybe that's what we're referring to. Life without reading, would be a life not worth living. It's just now, I have all of my books handy in one little "box."

I think, then, that my objection is to making an exclusive one-to-one correspondence between books and eReaders. It's like making an exclusive one-to-one correspondence between film and, say, Beta or VHS or Laserdisc or Celluloid or DVDs or streaming from Netflix. To be unable to live without books is not to be able to live without an eReader, as books (at least for now) exist independent of eReaders. If your passion here is reading, you do have another option.

Scary Books!

[spank_an_elf]

Holy Crap on a Crumpet, I didn’t realize how many of these little monsters existed! I knew about the zombies and sea monsters parodies but a brief peek on Amazon spawned: Little Vampire Women, Little Women and Werewolves, Android Karenina, Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, Jane Slayre, Mansfield Park and Mummies and others. Wow.

Fuck it, leave the monsters alone. Start writing parodies substituting politicians for the monsters. Reading about Nancy Pelosi staking Sarah Palin or Jan Brewer works for me. Imagine how easy it would be to transform John Boehner into a loathsome snake monster or transform Michele Bachman into an insane Medusa-style character. Hmmm...(taps chin).

Re: Scary Books!

[greygirlbeast]

Holy Crap on a Crumpet, I didn’t realize how many of these little monsters existed! I knew about the zombies and sea monsters parodies but a brief peek on Amazon spawned: Little Vampire Women, Little Women and Werewolves, Android Karenina, Romeo & Juliet & Vampires, Jane Slayre, Mansfield Park and Mummies and others. Wow.

And everyone thinks this is wit. It hurts.

Hmmm...(taps chin).

Let's not...

Re: Scary Books!

[spank_an_elf]

Awwww Mom!

[tipitiwitchet]

I wouldn't say my ebook reader will ever replace books for me, but it does have its place, and I do enjoy it.

I think, however, that it would have been most useful to me as a college student. If I could have carried my lightweight ebook reader around campus instead of the backpack full of books, well, I think my back would be the better for it today.

[greygirlbeast]

If I could have carried my lightweight ebook reader around campus instead of the backpack full of books, well, I think my back would be the better for it today.

You know, I'd not considered their utility to students. Hundreds of dollars a semester could be saved, as, in theory, ebooks should be cheaper to produce than hard copies (in practice, academic publishers would likely continue to price gouge). But yeah, far more practical. Especially with something more like an iPad, that could incorporate the text and word processing, etc.

[tipitiwitchet]

I wonder if publishers would be more reasonable with ebook prices for textbooks if they realized that it would mean students would be buying directly from them and not purchasing used books from the campus bookstores? Not that I think they would ever be be truly reasonable in their pricing, but they must miss those dollars they're losing to the used textbook market.

[greygirlbeast]

I wonder if publishers would be more reasonable with ebook prices for textbooks if they realized that it would mean students would be buying directly from them and not purchasing used books from the campus bookstores?

Probably not.