In The News

Today there was a curious article in The New York Times titled "Out of Print, Maybe, But Not Out of Mind". It was an article basically lamenting the death of the book (again) and all the ways in which technology is killing trying to improve it. I'm of the mindset that a physical book is a perfect thing. This will never change. I'm not exactly adverse to technology and how it is changing (and okay, in some instances improving) the reading experience, but I'm not exactly chasing after it either. To me there is nothing better than snuggling up on a chilly Sunday afternoon or evening with a really good book and a cup of tea. It's true. I'm a book-loving cliche. I have wall-to-wall bookshelves filled with stacks and stacks of...you guessed it: books. I get a thrill just thinking about my stocked bookshelves and wouldn't have it any other way. A Kindle filled with documents parading as books (no matter how many of those documents I can fit on a Kindle and thus in my purse) just doesn't give me the same thrill or the same sense of comfort. For me, the physical book is a comfort and I suspect I am not alone in this, which is why the many companies listed in this article endeavoring to improve a perfect thing are floundering. This quote from the article says it best for me:

“A lot of these solutions were born out of a programmer’s ability to do something rather than the reader’s enthusiasm for things they need,” said Peter Meyers, author of “Breaking the Page,” a forthcoming look at the digital transformation of books. “We pursued distractions and called them enhancements.”

So improvements are being made without thinking of the reader? Yes, that's wise... (This is sarcasm btw.)

And then there was this: 
 
“The ability to commit 10 or 15 hours to a book is going to be an increasingly fraught decision,” said Mr. Meyers, who came across Citia in the course of his research and found it so intriguing that he became its vice president for editorial and content innovation. “So we need ways to liberate the ideas trapped inside them.”

 But perhaps if this is the mindset from which these companies looking to "improve" the book and their ideas spring forth, then perhaps it is no wonder these companies are, in fact, floundering. They're regarding reading as a chore, when reading is actually a joy. A perfect joy.

Check out the article for yourself here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/technology/e-books-hold-tight-to-features-of-their-print-predecessors.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Stacey