Oh people who are all nobby about books

[LordPalmerston]

"Oh I love a real book". "I can see how much ice got left". Oh fgs ebooks are way better one handed reading. Easy storage. Easy to buy and HUGE FONT option for when you've forgotten your glasses or are drunk

Why do people go into mini orgasm about paper ?

Young children's books are picture books - not just text - often using pop ups or flap lifting as a way to capture their imagination or textured paper, reflective paper, which mine love. Kids flick back and forth to see the differences in the pages - they point out and discuss things in the illustrations. That is much more difficult with a kindle!

I have no book prejudices. I just need to have something to read. I have never judged somebody over what they read. My book collection is eclectic to put it mildly. I don't display me books rather that they have filled our home and we have fitted rooms with bookcases for storage. I have some bookcases with books categorised on them- cooking and food writing, travel, memoir etc but the rest get along in a happy muddle.

I always beeline to the book collections of others. I can't help it. And there is usually something there that I haven't read or thought about reading. That's the fun of it. A Kindle spoils that.

My dd reads books on her Kindle app on the nexus. They are quite frankly cheaper that way and I can buy a new one instantly. I tend to keep reference books - dictionaries, language books, travel guides etc but most paper novels are long gone to the charity shop. What is the point of having them on display these days? Unless you have first editions? I don't buy physical CDs anymore either. It is much more ecological to not have physical STUFF when you don't need it.

I love chick lit set in a little Cornish coastal village.

I find it very comforting for some reason.

Oooooh, Mo Hayder is scary. Proper frightening.

I like Marian Keyes and really wish she was not marketed as chick lit because I think her books are a bit more (snobbish comment, again)

I am currently rereading old Ruth Randell ones, early 1970s - gosh, her writing is bit dated-sounding now and the society she describes is really quaint sounding. I was alive in the 70s, so it's really odd to feel that this is almost historical .

I can't bear chick lit though, whatever format it comes in.

That's true, miss.

But I'm interested to see what develops if Kindles take off for children (I don't imagine they have yet, you're not going to let a 2 year old loose surely!). I think that new exciting things would be developed to replace the old ones. They'd be different, but still interesting.

I quite like vintage chick-lit like valley of the dolls.

I love my Kindle. And I love my books. They each have a place.

My new job involves visiting printers and the like. I am in stationery heaven. All that paper, and the smell of the inks! I'm learning loads about bookbinding and printing and it's a very sexy world. Yes it is.

I have read a few Phillipa Gregory books as well which must be historical chick lits.

Oh yes please, laqueen.

I think in a year or two someone will bring out an e-reader aimed at small children which is more robust than the adult versions (and pink for girls, blue for boys, obv). (Oh and it will come preloaded with fucking fairy shit for the girls too, won't it?)

My 8yo dd loves my Kindle. It's the only way I can get her to read Books Which Are Not By Jacqueline Wilson. It's not just the novelty - there's a practical advantage in being able to make the print bigger, so books like E. Nesbit which come in rather smaller print than your average Jacqueline Wilson can be made less intimidating.

I agree with Mignonette again.

I love having a nose at other people's bookshelves, love finding books we share or new ones they have that I haven't seen.

You can't really go into someone's house and pick up their Kindle and flick through it in the same way.

LaQueen area those real book titles?

area? are those...

I read urban fantasy

I do like a bit of crime fiction, but nothing too gory, as I am quite frankly, nesh these days and don't need anything too depressing. I made the mistake of taking an absolutely diabolical book by Lisa Gardner on holiday and as well as being implausible toss, it was deeply unpleasant to boot.

Please carry on buying books. Especially children's books, or else i'll be out of a job...and I have a baby to feed!

DH is in a computery job and amongst his lot, there is a bit of snobbery about people who aren't techie and don't use expensive stuff to read books. Probably they'd be equally snobby about an old kindle and print books - but they're certainly snobby about it.
I'm in a computery job, and there are those who just don't read, and of the others whom I know read, they're more than happy with real books.

We have around 3000 books, my home would look naked without them, and wouldn't feel like home.
Absolutely.

It's my dream to fully shelve our study, and have them all in one room
You know this doesn't work? You think, "Oh, I've got some more space, so I can buy that book..."

Imagine: 100 books = IQ 100
150 books = IQ 150
Bugger. My IQ would be in the thousands.

As for this thing about parents and books - we went to the library every Saturday without fail (and I won a prize for colouring in when I was about 5). But we also had a house full of books and I think one thing that will be lost with parents on eReaders is only one person can read it at a time, however many hundreds of books are on there. When my mother was sat with a book on the arm of the chair and her knitting pattern on the other arm, I could pick up any of the other books from the shelf and read it, so the books were more communal. That's mostly how I came to be more well-read than many of my schoolmates (also we didn't have a TV till I was nearly 15, so there wasn't anything else to do but read anyway.) I think being able to browse books can really help with increasing general knowledge, and on a rainy Sunday, with not a lot else to do, you might decide to read something just because it's there. (I would have probably played PacMan if I'd ever been allowed it, mind you.)

Nobody has ever visited our home and picked up the Kindles lying around to see what is on them.

They browse the book shelves though.

On the subject of Kindles for children, I downloaded a version of Alive in Wonderiand when I got the first ipad. It is incredible - you can throw jam tarts at the queen IIRC. Whilst this isn't a Kindle, it shows how the next step on from lift the flap or pop up books could be.

There is nothing inherently better or more worthy about a book made if paper. Nothing at all. It's all qualities artificially placed upon them by us. The story doesn't change whether it's actual ink or e-ink.

I haven't lost anything of the experience of reading by using a Kindle (and I am an avid long term book reader). I still lose myself in an eBook, I still have to remove DS2s kindle when he is reading well past bedtime (the Paperwhite was a mistake!). It's just the next step along the evolution of the "book", a journey that started out with paintings on cave walls, went through stone tablets, scrolls, manuscripts, leather-bound tomes and paperback books and has now arrived at eReaders.

Thinking a physical book is somehow superior is just daft. It's just got different packaging.

I think one thing that will be lost with parents on eReaders is only one person can read it at a time

DSs and I are all reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at the same time. How do you do that with a physical book - unless you buy/borrow multiple copies.

Yy mignon, I would feel that looking on someone's kindle was an invasion of privacy, but have no problem looking at bookshelves. My house is a bit of a local lending library, which is fine by me (only novels and cookbooks though - the kids' books and heavy reference stay put).

I wouldn't say that the quality of the written word is affected by an ebook but what you do miss out on is the design. As I said earlier, beautiful imprints like Persephone do not translate to ebooks. Think of the beauty of some of our great books, the illustrators such as George Cruickshank, Edward J Detmold and modern designers suchas Isaac Tobin, Keith Hayes, Jennifer Carrow and Emily mahon.

My BIl designs book livery. His work is exquisite and award winning.

I do think that if you aren't as into book design and collecting then you obviously won't find an ebook detracting. I don't mean that to be a slight either. I agree that ebooks are another 'evolutionary' step to a certain extent but I don't agree that an artist would abandon a canvas and paint because he could use computer aided design. Hockney uses both. There will always be people who love the whole aesthetic of a book and the owning of it as opposed to just the story and information on a page.