

The rise of the e-books - gopi
http://www.economist.com/node/21528611

======
sixtofour
Curmudgeon here.

I like ebooks, especially when they're significantly cheaper than the paper
version (as they should be), AND they're not limited to a single reader. I
like my half-price, DRM-free (as they should be) O'Reilly and Packt pdfs. I
highly recommend patronizing those and other DRM-free, device agnostic
publishers.

I agree with all the familiar laments on the smell of the paper, the feel in
your hands, the visual nature of the memory of locations in books, and I
recognize the benefits of ebooks nonetheless.

Two things I'll miss very much are the trip to the bookstore, and my books
calling out to me from my bookshelves and tables and floors and under-the-
couches.

The article points out that publishers will miss the advertising gained by
customers walking by a bookstore window, or browsing through the bookstore. I
will miss being on that flip side. Yes of course, you can browse more
"efficiently" online, but I don't go to a bookstore for efficiency, I go for
the experience and the serendipity. Most of the time I don't know what book
I'll come out of the store with; that almost never happens to me online.

I've tried browsing on Amazon, but I always seem to wake up after being put to
sleep. There is no serendipity in online book browsing, there is only tracking
down and killing something you already know you want. There is certainly no
pleasure in it, whether you're browsing or buying.

There is a similar loss of serendipity while thumbing through an ebook, or I
suppose you'd (ironically) call it paging through an ebook. I still, at my
age, enjoy thumbing through the physical dictionary. Think about how boring a
dictionary is. You already know the plot, you know how it ends, and yet you
sit there on the couch delighting in consumer, continuator, dormouse, dornick,
FIFO, hinge joint, Hispanolia, Zenobia and zero.

I have never thumbed through an edictionary, nor the online equivalent. I've
tried, but come on. ebooks are just not built for pleasure, they're built for
tasks, page 1 to page N.

I have collected around 20 ebooks on my laptop, free and paid. Some of them
I'm (supposed to be) actively reading, but they still often sit there in their
directory, powerless to call out to me and remind me to "read me!" On the
other hand I have physical books sitting all around me, and I read them all,
the ones not on the shelf (but some of them too), some of them more frequently
than others, but they all get a chance to remind me that I have something to
read. To get through an ebook not connected with an urgent task, I'd have to
keep a ToDo list.

I'll almost certainly buy a dedicated reader one day, and I'll be happy not to
have to schlep a dictionary, a novel and The Python Cookbook on to a plane or
a bus. But I fear I'll end up reading less, while having access to more.

But that's me.

------
keecham
I agree with sixtofour. There's no doubting the fact that ebooks are more
"efficient" - from a space, price, and even environmental standpoint. However,
as an avid book reader (physical books, I still have not switched over to the
ebook readers), there's just something about having a book on my nightstand to
read for a few minutes before calling it a night, or on my desk to take me
away from my work during my lunch break. On the flip side, I have a million
and one things I can be doing if I have my laptop open, and a book just has
too much to compete with for my attention.

I'm a huge fan of technology and modernization, but I for one just don't see
myself making the switch to ebooks in the near future.

