Books...yes YOU LOVER OF BOOKS...how arrange them?

[GreyGeek]

In my adolescent period I spent a lot of time at the public library to escape a horrible family life. Yes, I walked the Mille between my house and the library. Hysterical busybodies didn't panic over free ranging kids and call the police. Essentially all kids prior to 1980 were free ranging.

At first I looked only at books with lots of pictures because dense text sans pictures was boring. There I learned about Leonardo DaVinci and the female anatomy. Porn, which was soft by today's standards, was found in the art section. The art books featuring anatomy were well thumbed. The location of the best pictures were immediately found by looking for the marginal folds!

One day I decided to run away. Following Huckleberry Finn's example I loaded a bandanna with 3 or 4 peanut butter and jelly sandwichs and started out heading west toward the mountains. "They'll be sorry when they realize I'm gone for good" I thought to myself. My route led right by the library and it had just opened. I was lost in the books. Suddenly the librarian informed me that the library was closing. It was pitch dark and I was hungry. I whistled my way home be tween the lamp posts. Nobody asked where I had been or even that I had been gone all day, missing all three meals.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Maybe a generational thing? From circa 1949, grew up at a time when books were scarce, unless you went to the city or school library. There was something magical about them--because of the promise for knowledge they held.

I'm a younger boomer than you are, but still a baby boomer. I come from money, so I can't pretend we wouldn't have had books without the library. But I can say that I LOVED going to the library, and I believe it was earlier in this thread that I posted links to my favorite, most "I'm home" library of all, the main library in Pasadena. I would spend hours there, just mesmerized by its massive size--all filled with my favorite things, books! To this day, 50+ years down the road, I feel like I'm home when I go there.

The net effect, even to this day, is that not only do books offer a thrill of adventure and discovery, and the pride of ownership, but holding and reading one, in the comfort of home, in a favorite spot or sitting up in bed, triggers something akin to the relaxation response (Herbert Benson, et. al.). Or, something like that. Whatever it is, it is "real" in the mind.

It most definitely is.

[GreyGeek]

Wrong antecedent!

If if you drop your e-reader ...

Of course you could have them backed up in cloud storage but paying for the cloud is like renting your books!
Also, sometimes venders pull the e-book you bought off your device. Can you imagine a paper book publisher writing you and demanding that you return the book you bought from them with them having to refund the purchase price?

[SteveRiley]

Just don't drop them, you'll lose your entire library! 8)

What? If I drop my children, my library disappears? Sounds like we're getting this thread mixed up with that other one.

LOL

[GreyGeek]

Wow. I totally don't understand how parents could expel their children.



Such damage doesn't happen with e-books, you know

Just don't drop them, you'll lose your entire library! 8)

[Qqmike]

BTW, I left home at 16, too--my choice. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ditto that story here, at age 18. No money of my own, got my first car and apartment, on my own, started (& finished) college (and grad schools), on loans, scholarships, stipends (teach for tuition), worked several s***a** P-T jobs, made it without ever being late on a bill, not even one day or one cent late, to this day 48 years later. I'll bet there's a lot of Baby Boomers with similar stories; I know many of my friends can tell the same stories.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Wow. I totally don't understand how parents could expel their children.

It was my decision to leave. There's a long, melodramatic story behind it, which I'll do everyone the favor of skipping!, but the bottom line was that I made my decision in a logical, rational manner, and have never looked back. Never regretted it for one moment--even though I kissed my family's money goodbye by doing so; no family-provided college education, no family-provided house or cars, no family-provided millions of dollars, etc. And I wouldn't change a thing.

Such damage doesn't happen with e-books, you know

So I've heard!

[Qqmike]

Maybe a generational thing? From circa 1949, grew up at a time when books were scarce, unless you went to the city or school library. There was something magical about them--because of the promise for knowledge they held. And actually owning them? Not in my middle-class neighborhood in small-town IL in the 1950's. Well, maybe a few cheap paperbacks now and then. Maybe that's a parental factor. Maybe if your parents were college professors, it might have been different. Whatever. The net effect, even to this day, is that not only do books offer a thrill of adventure and discovery, and the pride of ownership, but holding and reading one, in the comfort of home, in a favorite spot or sitting up in bed, triggers something akin to the relaxation response (Herbert Benson, et. al.). Or, something like that. Whatever it is, it is "real" in the mind.

[SteveRiley]

Have you tried a proper paper-white e-reader, like the original Kindle? As easy on my eyes as a book.

I find white text on a black background even easier. It works especially well at night, with the brightness on my Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 (using the Nook app) reduced to 1%.

There is a tactile experience when one reads a real book that you just don't get with an e-reader. The sensory experience one has reading a brand new book they just bought for the first time, or an old favorite you've owned for years and have read many times, are very differrent. Again, I don't believe/feel you can get that from an e-reader.

Interesting. The only thing I'm after from a book is knowledge. I don't think I've ever paid attention to the physicality of books. Well, maybe the really heavy ones, and "paid attention to" should be read as "griped incessantly about," haha.

[SteveRiley]

BTW, I left home at 16, too--my choice. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

So many with similar stories! I was kicked out of the nest during my senior year. (My attitude, my fault)

Wow. I totally don't understand how parents could expel their children.

His greatest pet peeve is a crease in the backbone caused by excessive folding of the binding.

Ugh! I cannot stand ANY damage to my books...at all. No dog-eared pages, no creases in their backbones, no coffee spills...nothing.

Such damage doesn't happen with e-books, you know

[DoYouKubuntu]

So many with similar stories! I was kicked out of the nest during my senior year. (My attitude, my fault)

I hear you.

His greatest pet peeve is a crease in the backbone caused by excessive folding of the binding.

Ugh! I cannot stand ANY damage to my books...at all. No dog-eared pages, no creases in their backbones, no coffee spills...nothing. And when I lend someone a book, I make sure they understand the rules.

[GreyGeek]

Oh, I see.

BTW, I left home at 16, too--my choice. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

So many with similar stories! I was kicked out of the nest during my senior year. (My attitude, my fault)

My son inherited my love of scifi and all of my collection. His library is somewhere around 2 to 3 thousand books, I'd guesstimate. He could (can?) tell the publisher by the smell of the book. His greatest pet peeve is a crease in the backbone caused by excessive folding of the binding.

[Snowhog]

There is a tactile experience when one reads a real book that you just don't get with an e-reader. The sensory experience one has reading a brand new book they just bought for the first time, or an old favorite you've owned for years and have read many times, are very differrent. Again, I don't believe/feel you can get that from an e-reader.

[Qqmike]

We all have our "rituals" involved or associated with reading a real, hard-copy book; and those are part of the "reading experience." Those rituals are chosen individually to be relaxing, even fun. And this counts. In my opinion.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Have you tried a proper paper-white e-reader, like the original Kindle? As easy on my eyes as a book.

I have a rooted Kindle Fire HD 8.9"--and that's what I've tried reading on. That plus a couple of smartphones along the way.

I gave up reading on my Kindle. To much of a pain to navigate. I've gone back to books, batteries not necessary.

Ditto. Besides, there's no comparison when it comes to thumbing through REAL pages, and being able to flip through from front to back or, my preferred method, back to front, and hop around from one place to another--after thumbing through to find what you're looking for.