12 Aug 2008

Hair growing success story & where's the fun in an e-book?.

Finally a way to make the news headlines that is achievable: 'Pensioner grows 5'7" of hair.' Now I could DO that. My news link to this item has a video clip too. It promises to be exciting.

Certainly not much else remarkable is happening. I am enjoying my morning drives up into the tree line. The shop did OK yesterday, which sort of made up for the phone calls from bookfair-goers ringing to find out how I am and tell me about their successful weekend of selling. It was really nice to hear from them but did rather rub salt into the wound.

Never mind. I am feeling up-beat and optimistic for no especially soundly founded reason. I just am.

A slightly worried post about e-books on the amazombie sellers board had me unmoved but moved to think of all the experiences we will miss if e-books take over the world. Here are a few:

* Dropping the book in the bath and being able to dry it off on the radiator.
* Losing a £10 note (like the one which I once used as a bookmark in the days I had spares.)
* Finding old postcards someone else has used as a bookmark. (I've never found the £10 yet.)
* Finding the dog/baby/hamster has chewed the last couple of pages and being left in suspense.
* Losing it on a train and not really caring.
* Leaving it in a cafe " " " "
* Lending it to a friend who forgets to give it back causing a life-long unspoken grudge.
* Lending it to a friend who claims to have given it back causing a life-long feud.
* Being able to go into a secondhand bookshop and ask for 'the book with a red cover I used to love when I was a child.'
* Having the shopkeeper find the book with a red cover I used to love as a child.
* Having a warmer living room because one wall is lined with books.
* Being able to read in one of those impossibly cold places where no technology works. (Or is it just that kettles won't boil at high altitudes... I'm reaching a bit here..')
* Flinging it across the room because it is impossible to understand.
* Scribbling notes in the margin.
* Writing silly gift inscriptions to annoy future Amazon sellers.
* Writing shopping lists or the first chapter of my next novel on the endpapers.
etc. etc.

In an article about e-books this futuristic thought was raised:

'It is perfectly conceivable that in the future we could have something that looks like a book, feels like a book, reads like a book and with separate paper-thin pages like a book, but which uses e-ink instead of the normal kind.'

It sounds like the vegetarian option that's made to look like the meat option! What's the point?

2 comments:

Gillian said...

I think one of the best things about books is that they catch the eye because they are on a shelf nearby. They interrupt the humdrum of the day by distracting you to rediscover what it was inside that made you keep it as part of your life's belongings in the first place.
Chhers Gillian

carol said...

That's a nice thought Gillian. I always feel more substantial when I look at my books - as if I really exist. Maybe that's why I started a bookshop!

I have books, therefore I AM!