Responses to "Words — Written in Stone or on the Wind"

For most of the readers who replied to our last email (Words - Written in Stone or on the Wind?), a book and light bulb team up beautifully for reading pleasure. While some new electronic devices deliver the words and the light together, our readers generally prefer the older "format."

I appreciated hearing from each of you who took the time to share your thoughts. Here are excerpts from just a few of the many comments we received. (I've edited out personal information.)

As you'll see below, most (but not all) of you prefer books to e-readers. However, we all use email and the web (often on a daily basis), and many of us already have hand-held digital readers. I'm still not sure how to define what essential quality is lost when I read a digital book compared to a hard copy.

So far, Paul Dry Books has not published any e-books. I'm sure we will in the future, but for today, if you have time, take a look at our catalog to read about our new book books.

Until August 8th, use the coupon code BOOKS1 for 30% off four of our 'books about books': The Book Shopper, So Many Books, The Fiction Editor, and Style: An Anti-Textbook.

Paul Dry

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Yo quiero leer en PAPEL!!!!!!!

Me gusta el papel.

El mundo digital me enferma.

No existe intimidad digital.

Y, sin intimidad, nada importante existe: tampoco la lectura.

- Jordi

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I don't mark up my books. And I still bear an affection for the copy of Middlemarch that's been sitting on my shelves forever.

If I decided to read it again today I might well choose to read it on my Kindle or something similar, because the Kindle is lighter than a copy of Middlemarch and because the print can be bigger.

It's likely that if I read Middlemarch again I'd be doing it while traveling, making the Kindle an even better choice, as it holds lots of other books too.

I don't buy many new novels these days, relying on the public library and my own personal library more. Most of the few I've bought have been for Kindle, because they're transportable and I don't have to find room on my crowded shelves for them.

Doesn't mean I have lost any love for printed codex format books. But if a new one is to earn a spot on my shelves it has to be wonderful, I have to want to reread it, and I have to get rid of another book to make space.

Steep criteria.

- Jessica

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Regarding the book in hand vs Kindle (or Nook) . . .

I have friends who use the Kindle happily on trips. I cannot imagine this. I can only think of it as one more expensive thing for me to lose. Though I can see its advantages. I prefer the actual texture and smell and feel and look of a book.

- Nancy

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I do have an answer to your question about whether I would prefer to reread the old paperback version that has been sitting on my shelf. When I was young I bought the cheapest paperbacks I could find, and they don't last. Recently [my sister] informed me that she was going to reread my old copy of PALE FIRE, and then she told me that she had to throw it away because it was falling apart. My college copy of THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS is still on my shelf for sentimental reasons but if I want to read the book I will probably wind up throwing that copy away and downloading a copy from Google.

Then there is the issue of the small type in those old editions--but we won't go there.

The moral of the story is that if you are a publisher you should go for quality manufacturing: good paper and good glue. Books are expensive; we should get what we pay for.

- Beth

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Editions do matter. And I'd choose an old Penguin any day over the Kindle. No surprises there.

There's a scene in the movie Wit that explains perfectly why editions matter (in this case an edition of John Donne). Check if out if you haven't seen it. It's one of my favorite movies. But I'll warn you, it's sad.

- Garrett

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In response to your question about which medium I would choose to read (or "read"), I have blogged about that issue at http://nasblog.org/author/davidclemens/ the most pertinent entries being "Manual Transmission" and "Where Read?" on page 2.

Keep up the good work!

- David (#1)

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I have books all over my house. Book cases in each room, filled to overflowing. Beloved old volumes as decorations on mantles over Texas stone fireplaces. I want to smell paper, feel the crack as I open a new book. On that note, I am not crazy about paperbacks.

I read, I absorb, I make notes, I have drawn funny pictures if the mood hits me. I love Libraries, but never check out books....

The Six Wives of Henry VIII kept me company as I worked on paperwork after I was attacked. I have climbed Everest with Jon Krakauer and Dr. Beck Weathers. Life was explained to me in Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I have laughed with Mark Twain many more times than TV.

In fact, I do not have a TV. But I have a book in each room, ready for me to sit, reach out and escape into the slums of India, the highest point on earth, a Plains Indian reservation.

Never will I carry about a "reader" or be tied to a laptop. Hand me a book, give me a lamp and for a bit ... all is right with the world.

- Marcy

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An interesting question--I think electronic devices will have to get a lot cheaper and portable before I get one, though they are very tempting as far as unsolicited manuscripts are concerned. Newspapers too--anything you assume you'll throw away. Interestingly, the Japanese are not keen on the devices at all and read electronically on their phones. The thought of reading Middlemarch on the phone (I actually found a downloadable Adam Bede on a website for reading on the phone)! But if you read characters vertically rather than alphabets horizontally, maybe it is easier.

- Laura

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I for one prefer to be able to dog ear pages, to revisit the sexiest parts of the book by finding the worn pages, to underline and make notes in the margins so years later I can see how much I have matured (or at least changed). I like to smell the musty yellow pages of my old books. I like to give my favorites away to special people, stupid notes and all. I like fighting the will of the paper to flop over, to wrestle with the materiality of a book. I take pleasure in breaking the spines to assert control. I like the kitchen stains in my cookbooks, and the slobber stains and crushed pages in the novels help me to sleep.

- Leslie

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In my case, it was neither. A few years ago, I was in Milan for a conference and had finished the two books I brought with me (Spook Country by William Gibson, and Tom Stoppard's play Rock & Roll), and the only bookstore near my hotel had a very limited selection of books in English. One of them was a Penguin edition of Middlemarch. Having 3 more days in Italy, I thought I could make good headway through the book, of which I'd read 100 pages in my undergrad days.

This strategy proved correct, as I found myself

1) immersed in the world Eliot created, and

2) without any other book on hand to lure me away.

That said, shortly after buying a Kindle a year or two later, I downloaded the Project Gutenberg edition of Middlemarch for it, just in case . . .

- Gil

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I will read the one I marked up.

I have my college (1967) Shakespeare with priceless notes. I gave away my grandfather's Complete Shakespeare and three other complete versions.

I have my Les Miserables with priceless notes and comments from 1969.

I spoke with Duval County (Jacksonville FL) director of something on a cruise last year; she had a Kindle. She explained the notes and underlining being saved. I thanked her and left. It's not the same.

- Kit

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I will read the one with the pages i can turn by hand, the paper one, because i believe that is the purpose of writing a story: to give the reader the excitement of turning the page. and the book should not disappear when you put it down. There is another compulsion, to see it on the shelf, or laying on the night table, or on your couch, and KNOW that it's there, it's in there, it waits, and it beckons, like an alley, or a gazebo, saying, "Come find out, come exist here, i'm ready for you . . ." and you trust it like you trust the sun in the morning.

That's why i read the old paperback-even if it's (Middlemarch).

- Tom

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There is another alternative to print or electronic books: video. I bought a print copy of Middlemarch about 15 years ago, but it has remained in my bookcase unread. When I do read Middlemarch, I'm certain it will be the print version. I seem to be physically incapable of reading on a screen (that is probably a function of my age). In the meantime, I have seen the BBC video presentation of the book. While this may be ultimately less satisifying then reading the printed original book, to me it is better than reading it on screen.

- Bill

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... even though I have my eye on an iPad, it would be for travel/airplane reading, not anything like Eliot.

I read Middlemarch in college in paperback and when I wanted to re-read it about ten years ago, I actually upgraded to a Modern Library Classic, because I wanted something weightier in my hands. It was one of the best weeks of my reading life.

- Lev

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To whom it may concern--about e-books and all the other loathsome names they are called, I have always wanted to see a bumper sticker with "Friends don't let Friends read e-books." If you think you can make a few shekels from it go for it.

- Mike

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[A]nd have to admit--maybe not Middlemarch, but I have been rereading my Austen and Bronte--on the Kindle. I also have re-read my classic favs by listening to them thanks to LibriVox. And I watch all the movie versions (BBC Masterpiece Classics are the best). I'm a multi-media junkie, loving to experience the stories in all their forms. Next, the iPad.

- Denise

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I think this is true for nonfiction as well. I mark my books about education and go back to reread. I go through my shelves looking for something on point that no end of Google could bring back for me. How much can Kindle store and for how long? I actually had a nightmare that all of my library was on a Kindle and it crashed, something like a house fire that is less probable than a crash or lost Kindle. Anyway thanks for the food for thought.

- Sandy

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And I'd prefer the physical book version. But then, again, I'm of the book generation.

- Eleni

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I am an educator; I teach mentally gifted seventh graders who love to read. Currently, we are studying Transcendentalism, and I have always loved what Thoreau said about the value of books: "Books are the treasured wealth of the world." I tell my wide-eyed students about my experience studying at Mansfield College in Oxford in 1985, when I bought a book because of its beautiful cover at a flea market--and later held in my trembling hands the earliest copy of a leather-bound, embossed and gold lettered sheepskin volume owned by Cardinal Woolsey himself, from which my book's cover was copied. I remain a book devotee; I don't plan to buy an electronic reader, unless I use it for popular best-sellers that I don't plan to purchase. My house is full of books, which I use again and again since knowledge is so precious. I curl up with my cat to read when I return from a long day; my husband and I read books in bed. I hope I have answered your question regarding books versus electronic readers. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you want further accolades for books.

- Kathleen

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I'm old fashioned, of course. I like old buildings, I don't have cell phone or TV and I like books. I like to make notes in my books, but since I transcribe my notes and the passages I like (by hand, into notebooks so I'm still old fashioned there) in fact I have no need to keep most of the books I have acquired. I do reread some of my books, but it's a small percentage.

Nonetheless I find it hard to part with them. Often just to look at one on the shelf is a reminder of the pleasure it once brought me and I might pick it up and randomly read a chapter or a page and find myself immersed and reading on to the end. To throw away a book is impossible, almost sacrilegious. So when I have to clear off space for the new ones, or get rid of books I bought and didn't enjoy, I haul them over to my second hand book store and give them away for others to enjoy.

I haven't bought many books in electronic form, I guess that's because I don't have a gadget to read them with (though the iPad is tempting). However, I have bought a couple of audio books to listen to on my iPod and find they have one great advantage: I have no compunction about hitting "delete" when I find I'm not enjoying the book (which thus far has been the case with my relatively few audio purchases) and, like magic, and with no remorse, it's gone.

So I guess I will continue to try to hold out. Once I get a cell phone, you might start to worry. That will be a sign I may be headed into the electronic age, but until then I will continue to buy, hold, read, annotate and treasure the printed word.

- John

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Inside the cover I write where I was and when I read the book. When I lend a book the next reader writes the same information. So, when I take a book off my shelf it has a history, a fond history, making it precious to me. I wouldn't get this on a Kindle, so, for now, I'm sticking with the hard, old copies of books.

- Helen

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I have kept many of my books throughout the years and have turned to them again and again. At the University of Chicago in the 1950s, we were taught to mark up our books, identifying key steps in arguments or plots, key terms and conclusions. I have mixed feelings when I return to these books. I am alternately impressed and disgusted with my remarks found there. More important, the remarks seem a distraction from the new encounter with the book. As a result, I often buy a new copy! Although I now have a large library which would seem to discount the following conclusion, I do believe that the words are merely a vehicle to discovering a reality beyond them or within them. To regard any particular book as an incarnation of something valuable beyond the meanings which the words, plots, arguments it delivers is a form of bibliomania which I find difficult to justify. I love libraries, bookstores, (and certain presses, like Paul Dry as well), but must confess that, contrary to Borges, I can find no real and deep value in shelves of books, (wherever located) aside from my own idiosyncratic psyche. (As a child, I would walk through the library stacks and often pick books by their cover!)

- Richard

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Have no interest in seriously reading anything but hard copy.

Electronic copy is fine for getting briefed or for superficial checking-into.

Put me down for good, old-fashioned books.

- David (#2)

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Recently, during a visit to a school where I was about to lecture to a high-school class, the teacher told me that in the next two to three years all the students textbooks would be stored on a electronic reading device such as the popular Kindle. The rationale offered up by the teacher was that the students' book bags were becoming so heavy with textbooks that students were experiencing back problems. While the electronic versions of textbooks seem to be preferable on this basis, I wonder what the possible unintended consequences of such a change might be, if one takes the rationale or model of knowledge as information storage and retrieval to its logical conclusion. Further considered as part of a thought experiment, one might consider the ethical implications of an information-based-only model of knowledge in order to challenge the digitized learning promoters to take a more sober assessment of the "promises" of such technology.

- Karl

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As you can imagine, the future of the book concerns us a great deal in the Core Curriculum at [my] University. Grant for a moment that you, I, and the people in our generation appreciate the presence of a physical book, but what about the generation of our students? Do you know of any research or informed opinion that helps us read their minds and understand their reading habits?

- David (#3)

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I prefer to hold a book in my hands--I need ink on paper. An electronic book is utterly unappealing.

- Jeanette

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Your views on the ephemeral quality of electronic books contrasted with the substantial qualities of printed ones strikes a chord in readers born into a print-only world, as I was. I too look forward to returning to my copy of Middlemarch, read during my fellowship years when I was facing a decision between entering academic medicine vs medical practice. Even more I look forward to re-entering the world of Pepys Diary whose eight hardback volumes (in the University of California Press edition issued during the 1970s) I read and passed on to my father one at a time, relishing his enjoyment of them along with my own. The experience formed a link with his own childhood experience, listening to his father's laughter as he read an earlier edition of the diary at night in bed.

One can hope that the e-book serves its transient purposes, but that print volumes endure to fulfill our emotional needs.

- James

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A friend recently quipped to another friend who was "enthusing" about her new Kindle, "Oh, yes, how neat! But how does it smell?" [read also "feel," "look," etc, with color and cover and specific typography and marks of your earlier reading, etc. ad infinitum.] It is said of the great Dr. Johnson, lexicographer, essayist, moralist, pillar of English literature, and subject of Boswell's extraordinary Life of Samuel Johnson, the greatest English-language biography, that when he returned books borrowed from friends, the books were the worse for wear--gravy stains, bent pages, etc.--because he read so passionately, often while easting a meal as voraciously, I assume, as he consumed books. So one might have treasured such a "Johnsonized" and tattered text, silent witness to that supremely learned man's manner of embracing what he studied.

- Rockwell

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In my experience, the printed book captures part of my life: the turned-down page corners, coffee stains, particular warping, the weight of the volume (familiar from weeks or months of toting in my backpack) . . . Preciously familiar, like old friends.

- Marcia