The Sunday Paper – Freakin’ Texas
Midweek Staff Meeting – For Good Or For Ill
Holy Librarians, Batman!
Weekend Reading – Here To Stay
Weekend Reading – Selling Yourself
The E-Book As Spirit
Theory of the E-book puts forward (in an overdramatized fashion) the idea of the e-book as essentially being an object of spiritual existence. Basically, exhuming the body of Rene Descartes for some old fashioned mind-body dualism.
But, of course, this isn’t inspired by the Cartesian demon, but rather by the modern ‘brain in jar held be aliens’ formulation.
Actually, I like to think of it as the manga formulation – the e-book as the literal ghost in the shell. Meh.
Read The Whole Thing
A Return (Of Sorts) Of Print Books?
There has been a slowdown in the growth of e-readers. They seem to be finding themselves supplanted by more general purpose tablets (something which was widely predicted to eventually happen).
Tablet computers are more general purpose content consumption devices. I own an iPad (a gift from a lovely woman), but I only rarely read books on it. In fact, very nearly the only thing I read with a clear print correspondent are comic books (I read my comics in a mix of old fashioned print and iPad; at present, I consume three DC titles: Action Comics, Batman, and Aquaman).
When I want to read, I use my nook or a print book.
Studies suggest I’m not alone: people don’t read books on tablet computers. They read lots of things, but not books.
Could this presage some growth in print books? After all, so long as people read, they will read books, and if dedicated e-readers decline and if people are not reading on tablets, could we not see a rise in the three dimensional book as object?
the coffee philosopher 