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 ?

[wordfactory]

Anybig the issue of lending/borrowing books is an interesting one.

I have been handed many a book by a friewnd with a command to read it. I've done the smae of of course.

Does an ereader produce the collegaite experience of books? Doe sit matter?

Also, what about libraries? How do they lend ebooks?

[AnyBigFuckingJessie]

Dawndonnaagain yes, I have bought various bookcase in the last year. For a month, after each purchase, the piles were gone. Everythingwas tidy. Then the piles came back. Mysteriously in the dead of night...

Nothing to do with my visits to the Oxfam foreign languages section, I'm sure!

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

The collegiate experience of books on e-readers is more 'Such-and-such a book is only 99p on Kindle today, you must get it!' so people immediately buy it in a way they wouldn't if the book being recommended was £7.99 and they had to go and find it in a shop.

[wordfactory]

Ah I see tunip.

Though books being on sale for 99p is a thorny subject for we writers. Soon the only people who will be able to afford to be writers will be the independently rich and those of us whos ell in numbers.

[FrauMoose]

My local authority lends ebooks. I might try it out.

www.birmingham.gov.uk/ebooks

[ScarerAndFuckItsAGhost]

I've had the urge to sing "video killed the radio star" all day today and I'm blaming this thread

[TheOnlyOliviaMumsnet]

@LordPalmerston

"I can see how much ice got left"

Tis annoying on Kindle that you get a %age left rather than how much you've got left but you can still have the same proper with a RL paper book as per here

[MorrisZapp]

Book lovers love books. I like my kindle app too though, its handy when caught in a waiting situation with no reading material.

[ButThereAgain]

I'm imagining ancient greeks moaning about the fact that having epic poems written down just isn't the same as having a blind poet reciting it in front of them. "You can take blind poets anywhere, and they are just so handy, none of this dissolving when they get a bit wet."

[mignonnette]

I hate that Olivia. Especially when it is a fifteen page guide for book club discussion plus a preview!

[AnyBigFuckingJessie]

wordfactory I feel like a software pirate trying to justify copyright infringement, but I've discovered and bought books by authors new to me, thanks to borrowing from friends. I'd be sad to see the end of that.

Meanwhile, I urgently need our household's level of brow checked by knowledgeable MNers. We have a bookcase of DVDs, (including foreign films in French, German, Danish, from set films for A-level to general culture), sci-fi nerd DVDs , fiction books by the mileload in English, French and German, comic books (mainly English, but there's French present), reference books and dictionaries (four languages: English, French, German, Latin), husband's entire university reading list over the whole of his degree, etc.

[Trills]

I hate that too - I want moooooooore book!

[AnyBigFuckingJessie]

Romantic trash is also well represented with Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South and there's cookery books here.

As befits an MNer, we have Terry Pratchett, too.

[TheArticFunky]

Kindles have their place although I prefer real books. I'm a bit of a hoarder and a Kindle feels like cheating.

There are some real snotty people on mumsnet who think that having a house bursting full of books makes them superior to others. I've seen posts from people looking to buy a house who claim that they won't buy a property if the owner doesn't have any books on show.

[AnyBigFuckingJessie]

TheArticFunky that's weird. I'd certainly understand it being easier to see if a house will be big enough for one's bookcases, if the vendor owns some, but I'm guessing the motivation was less prosaic than that. Otherwise they'd just bring a tape measure with them to the viewing, instead of writing off a house's possibilities at first sight.

[PacificDogwood]

May I just state for the record how heartened I am by this thread?
There IS an interested in reading, yay!

And btw some comment on here made me pick up a Kate Morton book in the charity shop this morning. DS4 was in iPad heaven afterwards as his mother read and ignored him...

[NibbledByHaddock]

To me, books are about the story, or facts contained within. The written word is the written word, be it on a Kindle or a hardpack or a cheap paperback. The story is what carries me away - not the typeface or the sniff of the paper. On a Kindle Fire, or a Nexus you get all photos etc in full colour anyhow.

[FrauMoose]

To me that's a bit like saying what matters about a lover is their mind, not their body.

In relationships most of us are quite aware of the body, and in some cases that can make or break the relationship.

And that is how I am with writing. I prefer it to have an attractive physical presence.

[mignonnette]

I wouldn't presume to judge a persons intellect by whether they have books or not lying around. That is plain daft.

I would buy a house if it had space for all my books. Room for the children and my husband? Not so important .

[PacificDogwood]

No, more books beget books - you are doooooomed, LaQueen .

The whole thing about not buying a house in which there are not books is just daft: not because of the books or lack thereof, but what does it matter what the previous owner liked or disliked?? He is moving out, one would hope. Yes, space for ones own books, but otherwise...

FrauMoose, yes, a nice body helps, but surely the mind is more important? I'd rather read a tatty, stained, ripped edition of a great book than a hand tooled, leatherbound copy of.... oh, I don't know, 50 Shades .

[FrauMoose]

It isn't hoarding, it's collecting! Quite different. (Though at Moose Villa we do have the occasional cull.)

[goldopals]

I love books and have close to 3000 (e-format and paper combined). I like e-books because they are lighter in mass, you can hide dodgy ones, instant gratification and you can read on several devices (I have a kindle and apps on my phone, tablet 1, tablet 2, phone 2 and laptop). I like paper books for the whole experience and ease in lending.

I read a dystopian novel once where the government were able to re write history because books were electronic and could be changed easily. Just a thought...

[Ohwhatwitcheryisthis]

a book doesn't wait till the last chapter to say this book cannot be downloaded. And yes I have deleted and up loaded from archive.
And there is an awful lot of total of shite on Kindle. Maybe the reason why so many can't get published is they are crap. (ducks behind sofa) and I know the publishing world is tough and highly rigged but still. ..

[wordfactory]

Ohwhat to be fair to many self published writers, the publishing industry is an incredibly difficult place to break into.

Publishing houses buy books based on whether they are saleable not whether they are good. Now of course the two are not mutually exclusive.

But it must be said that agenst and the houses are becoming increasingly conservative. They don't want to take any risk. If they don't think a book can sell in numbers then it doesn't get a sniff. Similarly ifthey don't think an author will be prolific, they can be easily put off.

All that said, the industry has never published so many books. The sheer numbers of debut novels are astounding as each agent/house chases the Next Big Thing. But newbies need to be aware that if they don't sell well, they may be dropped like the proverbial stone.