-------Good point. But I think an either better point is that everyone is different. Some people prefer to read real books with hardcovers and dustjackets, some like paperbacks, but some don't like them. Some readers like audio books, but prefer cds, others prefer tapes. Now with e-books some will like them, others will not. But the biggest group is the non-readers; they don't care about paperbacks, hardcovers, e-books, audio books, you name it, and they don't want to read at all.
Me? I've been a collector with a capital C for decades. I'll keep buying vintage paperbacks, pulp magazines, old first editions. If others like e-books, go ahead and buy them. The non-readers can continue to not read. We can argue all we want but everyone is different concerning their bookish pursuits and very few will change their minds.
-----Walker Martin.
--- On Sat, 12/19/09, Frederick Zackel <fzackel@wcnet.org> wrote:
From: Frederick Zackel <fzackel@wcnet.org>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: nuts to the feel of a real book
To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, December 19, 2009, 11:40 PM
Geez, I get tired listening to that yawp!
Ya think folks will stop buying real leather-bound (oops, cardboard-bound)
books because e-readers pop up?
Ever heard of an audio book? OMG!!! It's not a book! It's a tape! It's
not a book at all!!!!
Go ahead and drive from D'Etroit (that French city by Canada) down to Miami
on I-75 and read a book the whole way. Or go getcha a tape or CD of Elmore
Leonard's story being read by Nicole Kidman and listen down the road.
We buy Elmore Leonard's story. The container for that story could be some
raggedy-ass paperback we find ina garbage can behind Macy's, or some flash
drive, or a floppy disk, or a hard drive, or a stack of pretty white typing
paper, or a fancy-dan custom-made genuine tailor-made ostrich-skin audio
book.
We buy the story. The container just keeps the words from spilling out on
the bleeding floor!
I got lots of books. I got so many books that i stick them in cardboard
boxes and forget I even got them. I buy duplicates to books I already got
because I forgot I bought them before. I give full grocery bags of real
books to my library. I keep books, too. I got Megan Abbott's autograph on
one of hers, a Bob Crais autographed book, even a Ross Macdonald book he
signed. I also go to the library, sit in a chair and read a book and never
take it out -- just leave it behind for the next guy.
The story. That's what's important. The story.
The first story GILGAMESH was carved on stone. Stone was its container.
OMG, I can read GILGAMESH on my computer! The monitor ... must be the
container. (Huh?)
An e-reader is a new type of container. Like ... papyrus.
You know, they got this new-fangled thing called radio. Why, I bet, once
radio gets e-stablished, folks will stop going to the movie houses, and
nobody will ever see AVATAR once it comes out.
Get a grip, guys. There is no apocalypse. Stories are not going away.
And if a writer can make $2.58 on a story that's been sitting on his
hard-drive for ten years, fantastic!
Why, that's two pieces of toast and a cup of coffee at Panera! He can sit
there and write another story.
Fred Zackel
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