November 10, 2011 at 00:55Minute Fun. Farewell to paper books
Once wandering the hills of San Francisco, I turned on my phone to search for nearby bookstores. The picture upset me, with a dozen addresses, each of which ended with a sacramental - closed. Within Chinatown, one of the addresses turned out to be working. Diving into the Kerouac street, I stumbled upon plates with the sayings of various writers, wandering around them, turned onto the next street and found myself in front of the City Lights store. Inside there are three floors, little space, a pile of shelves with a conditional division of books by authors and topics. What guarantees an hour of searching without a purpose and a selection of books that you may like. No computer pointers, memory sellers trying to help you find what interests you. Unmistakably taxiing to a huge shelf and showing three or four small books in the corner. Aerobatics. With them you can discuss the latest arrivals, learn about their tastes and passions. If you need such communication, but not, you can dig into independent searches with your head. And stumble upon books that have eluded your eyes but look promising. A store for those who like to read, and do not treat books as utilitarian objects. Electronic bookstores, this is modern fast food from the world of books, you resort to buy the right book, not understanding how it looks, how it will be read, but following the recommendation of a friend or some kind of review. Wandering around the electronic store is somehow stupid and not a single person has such a habit, it makes no sense. Drawing an analogy further, bookstores as gastronomic boutiques offering a choice of different dishes for those who have learned to consume them. Of course, those who run here who needs to buy one particular book and run further into the bustle of the city. Somewhere there are a majority of such people, somewhere there are considerably fewer of them.
But such bookstores fly away with leaves, their century has passed. The first bell rang in 2010, the largest Borders chain began to close stores outside the United States. In London, I did not find my favorite store, which gave me the opening of a dozen new authors and books. A denim boutique appeared in his place, as if there were never any books in this place. A year later, in San Francisco, I lost another Borders at Union Square. A huge, home store where you could sit downstairs with coffee and browse selected books, choosing the ones that stay with you. This world is already destroyed. IT'S A PITY.
When I got my first pocket money, I often spent it on books. He came to a large bookstore and wandered between the shelves. I had enough money for one, two books and I had to choose them correctly, with caution. Carefully scrolling through the pages, catch a glimpse of one of them, sometimes at the beginning, sometime at the end. Run a finger along the spine, remember the feeling. Some books in the hands of sound, and some do not respond at all, they are lifeless. Since then, the ritual has remained unchanged, receiving the first salary I went to bookstores. These were second-hand bookstores on the ruins of old Moscow, in dilapidated alleys and the same crumbling shops, covered with dust from books. The indescribable smell of old books, yellowed pages and searches in heaps of junk of real pearls. Big shops, where the books of different authors stood in disagreement or alphabetically, and the most interesting was placed near the box office. Then, in these strongholds of printing, they mastered the calculation both alphabetically and by topic, it became interesting to guess which subject and by what chance they attributed this or that book. A philosophical treatise could be found in the electronics section, because the word phone was in the title. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place. that the name was the word phone. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place. that the name was the word phone. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place.
My children probably no longer have to see such a vast expanse of bookstores. Under the pressure of electronic literature, these mastodons of the past recede, and I myself unwittingly vote against them. It’s one thing to wait for the book to appear in print and quite another, the ability to instantly buy it on Amazon and immediately start reading on the Kindle or any other device. We are losing our understanding of the type of book, its weight, print quality, volume. Yielding to universal hysteria, I acquired a biography of Steve Jobs. There are many pages in it, my iPad showed several thousand sheets. How much is this, what is the equivalent of my time in the real world? I read quickly, but will it be enough for me for a week or will it take me several weeks to swallow this book? I dont know. At the airport, I first saw what a paper book looks like. Good 800 pages of text in a standard cover. It is huge, without any understatement. This should be kept on the coffee table at home, and it is clearly not for the road, but for dimensional reading. Please note that publishers played with our attention, they created the format that, in their opinion, best explains the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive. they created the format that they thought would best explain the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive. they created the format that they thought would best explain the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive.
What about paper? The paper itself was selected so that you understood what you were reading. The font, design, all this indicated that before you is another piece of work by a prolific graphomaniac writer or a real work of art. Sometimes one was disguised as another and it was also a kind of game. Books having lost their physical form lost much. But we have lost even more. I am sure that in the future they will come up with the equivalent of this book. They will show in electronic form the weight, size and possibly even imitate the smell of printing ink and the rustling of pages. Sometime in the distant future, if there remain those who remember these feelings and do not consider them old-fashioned. But bookstores will sink into oblivion, will remain an anachronism.
But my world of bookstores is heading for the abyss. It must be admitted. Separate reservations will remain in the world for book lovers like me. This will not happen quickly, the old will go away for a long time, but already my children will not catch this world. And this is sad because it is not just a habit that leaves. Read with the advent of electronic devices have become more and all studies speak about this. It leaves the opportunity to explore our space in a different way and to discover the world, to discover a new one, succumbing to the temptation to turn a shelf in the section of psychology books and find on it the manifest of Jaron Lanir. It will be impossible. Instead, the search bar and keywords that interest an Amazon visitor, coupled with the maximum number of positive reviews in a particular age group living in Greater London. The search will become sophisticated you can find books by phrases and words, mood, what people in your circle are reading in a certain country, city or even city district. A terrible picture that predetermines the fact that many writers will remain overboard, simply because they did not receive five stars in the readers rating in a timely manner and they will be interesting to marginal groups that are faithful to old customs. Moreover, this terrible world with a complex and unique search suggests that we ourselves will limit the world of books, change them in an unimaginable way. A writer who writes a commercial novel will follow the ideas of optimizing his book for a search algorithm, rather than creating what he can be proud of. Of course, it is necessary to share commercial literature, which thrives today, with what is written for other reasons. And today, reading some popular books, you understand that the author wrote the script for the film, did not do a literary work that can be comfortably read. It was and will be. But here is the basic idea that rules the book world today will change.
The need for censorship in this world will disappear by itself. Why forbid books and treatises if they are not read? Enough to put low ratings or throw them out of the search so that they cease to exist for most readers. In physical terms, their existence will not be threatened, nor by the authors. But they won’t be able to get recognition or influence the real world. They are out of ratings, out of cars, out of time. I admit that there will be associations of people who begin to struggle with such a system and begin to artificially add a rating to a particular book. Sometimes they will be worthy books, but more often the crowd will play in the promotion of base literature, simply because it is funny. And with this, the whole idea of such movements will be compromised.
And again, the recommendations of friends and parents will once come to the fore. To some extent, books will lose their greatness, but they will again gain a narrow circle of those who will recommend them within their small social circle. Will this system balance the algorithms for searching and providing books that are already created today? Not sure. I do not want to believe in the terrible outcome of the history of books, I am more pleased to believe that we, as humanity, will somehow get out of it again and figure out how to deal with it. In the end, we successfully managed to do this in the past, why not allow that in the future, we will win in the fight against ourselves. Certainly the chances of victory are great. But this will not return bookstores. Physical media is a luxury in the digital age. Therefore, our libraries acquire zero gravity, and they store so many books, which not a single person will read in his life. Do we need such electronic camber? Sure no. I am sad for the outgoing world of books and I understand that in the future there will be less and less. Not far off is the time when publishers will cheerfully report that the book of such a writer for the first time comes out only in digital format, and books will begin to be printed on paper for great reasons and for collectors. This is the business of the next decade. The book cannot be killed, Umbert Eco talked about this in the eponymous collection. But it can be crippled and changed beyond recognition. We are doing this together, although we often do not understand the consequences of our actions. Each time you type “technology, adventure, space, 25th century” in the search line of the electronic bookstore, you bring the world that I described closer. Make it a little more real. We already read differently and tomorrow everything will change. I am a mastodon from the old era and until the last I will remain faithful to paper books, but my time has passed and I can see it from today. Let me still have 20-30 years left, which I will stock up with my favorite writers on paper. Build up your stock for a rainy day. What I recommend you do. Tomorrow may be too late.
But such bookstores fly away with leaves, their century has passed. The first bell rang in 2010, the largest Borders chain began to close stores outside the United States. In London, I did not find my favorite store, which gave me the opening of a dozen new authors and books. A denim boutique appeared in his place, as if there were never any books in this place. A year later, in San Francisco, I lost another Borders at Union Square. A huge, home store where you could sit downstairs with coffee and browse selected books, choosing the ones that stay with you. This world is already destroyed. IT'S A PITY.
When I got my first pocket money, I often spent it on books. He came to a large bookstore and wandered between the shelves. I had enough money for one, two books and I had to choose them correctly, with caution. Carefully scrolling through the pages, catch a glimpse of one of them, sometimes at the beginning, sometime at the end. Run a finger along the spine, remember the feeling. Some books in the hands of sound, and some do not respond at all, they are lifeless. Since then, the ritual has remained unchanged, receiving the first salary I went to bookstores. These were second-hand bookstores on the ruins of old Moscow, in dilapidated alleys and the same crumbling shops, covered with dust from books. The indescribable smell of old books, yellowed pages and searches in heaps of junk of real pearls. Big shops, where the books of different authors stood in disagreement or alphabetically, and the most interesting was placed near the box office. Then, in these strongholds of printing, they mastered the calculation both alphabetically and by topic, it became interesting to guess which subject and by what chance they attributed this or that book. A philosophical treatise could be found in the electronics section, because the word phone was in the title. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place. that the name was the word phone. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place. that the name was the word phone. The coloring book for children with the ridiculous word business was attributed to business literature, where it stood for a week, until the meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place.
My children probably no longer have to see such a vast expanse of bookstores. Under the pressure of electronic literature, these mastodons of the past recede, and I myself unwittingly vote against them. It’s one thing to wait for the book to appear in print and quite another, the ability to instantly buy it on Amazon and immediately start reading on the Kindle or any other device. We are losing our understanding of the type of book, its weight, print quality, volume. Yielding to universal hysteria, I acquired a biography of Steve Jobs. There are many pages in it, my iPad showed several thousand sheets. How much is this, what is the equivalent of my time in the real world? I read quickly, but will it be enough for me for a week or will it take me several weeks to swallow this book? I dont know. At the airport, I first saw what a paper book looks like. Good 800 pages of text in a standard cover. It is huge, without any understatement. This should be kept on the coffee table at home, and it is clearly not for the road, but for dimensional reading. Please note that publishers played with our attention, they created the format that, in their opinion, best explains the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive. they created the format that they thought would best explain the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive. they created the format that they thought would best explain the book. Great books for sedate reading in a relaxed home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the thick of public transport or during breaks when you get out to the park. There were universal formats and those that I did not want to take to the street. The books were different. But e-books have almost destroyed this diversity and are continuing their offensive.
What about paper? The paper itself was selected so that you understood what you were reading. The font, design, all this indicated that before you is another piece of work by a prolific graphomaniac writer or a real work of art. Sometimes one was disguised as another and it was also a kind of game. Books having lost their physical form lost much. But we have lost even more. I am sure that in the future they will come up with the equivalent of this book. They will show in electronic form the weight, size and possibly even imitate the smell of printing ink and the rustling of pages. Sometime in the distant future, if there remain those who remember these feelings and do not consider them old-fashioned. But bookstores will sink into oblivion, will remain an anachronism.
But my world of bookstores is heading for the abyss. It must be admitted. Separate reservations will remain in the world for book lovers like me. This will not happen quickly, the old will go away for a long time, but already my children will not catch this world. And this is sad because it is not just a habit that leaves. Read with the advent of electronic devices have become more and all studies speak about this. It leaves the opportunity to explore our space in a different way and to discover the world, to discover a new one, succumbing to the temptation to turn a shelf in the section of psychology books and find on it the manifest of Jaron Lanir. It will be impossible. Instead, the search bar and keywords that interest an Amazon visitor, coupled with the maximum number of positive reviews in a particular age group living in Greater London. The search will become sophisticated you can find books by phrases and words, mood, what people in your circle are reading in a certain country, city or even city district. A terrible picture that predetermines the fact that many writers will remain overboard, simply because they did not receive five stars in the readers rating in a timely manner and they will be interesting to marginal groups that are faithful to old customs. Moreover, this terrible world with a complex and unique search suggests that we ourselves will limit the world of books, change them in an unimaginable way. A writer who writes a commercial novel will follow the ideas of optimizing his book for a search algorithm, rather than creating what he can be proud of. Of course, it is necessary to share commercial literature, which thrives today, with what is written for other reasons. And today, reading some popular books, you understand that the author wrote the script for the film, did not do a literary work that can be comfortably read. It was and will be. But here is the basic idea that rules the book world today will change.
The need for censorship in this world will disappear by itself. Why forbid books and treatises if they are not read? Enough to put low ratings or throw them out of the search so that they cease to exist for most readers. In physical terms, their existence will not be threatened, nor by the authors. But they won’t be able to get recognition or influence the real world. They are out of ratings, out of cars, out of time. I admit that there will be associations of people who begin to struggle with such a system and begin to artificially add a rating to a particular book. Sometimes they will be worthy books, but more often the crowd will play in the promotion of base literature, simply because it is funny. And with this, the whole idea of such movements will be compromised.
And again, the recommendations of friends and parents will once come to the fore. To some extent, books will lose their greatness, but they will again gain a narrow circle of those who will recommend them within their small social circle. Will this system balance the algorithms for searching and providing books that are already created today? Not sure. I do not want to believe in the terrible outcome of the history of books, I am more pleased to believe that we, as humanity, will somehow get out of it again and figure out how to deal with it. In the end, we successfully managed to do this in the past, why not allow that in the future, we will win in the fight against ourselves. Certainly the chances of victory are great. But this will not return bookstores. Physical media is a luxury in the digital age. Therefore, our libraries acquire zero gravity, and they store so many books, which not a single person will read in his life. Do we need such electronic camber? Sure no. I am sad for the outgoing world of books and I understand that in the future there will be less and less. Not far off is the time when publishers will cheerfully report that the book of such a writer for the first time comes out only in digital format, and books will begin to be printed on paper for great reasons and for collectors. This is the business of the next decade. The book cannot be killed, Umbert Eco talked about this in the eponymous collection. But it can be crippled and changed beyond recognition. We are doing this together, although we often do not understand the consequences of our actions. Each time you type “technology, adventure, space, 25th century” in the search line of the electronic bookstore, you bring the world that I described closer. Make it a little more real. We already read differently and tomorrow everything will change. I am a mastodon from the old era and until the last I will remain faithful to paper books, but my time has passed and I can see it from today. Let me still have 20-30 years left, which I will stock up with my favorite writers on paper. Build up your stock for a rainy day. What I recommend you do. Tomorrow may be too late.