Keeping Books Alive

I am Confused.

My attitude seems to have changed. If you ask my friends what I think of e-readers, they will tell you immediately: "SHE HATES THEM." If somebody asks me, out of the blue, what I think of e-readers, without really thinking, I will say, "I HATE THEM," and probably also tell you about my feud with the Nook Man.

But do I actually hate them? I don't think I do. I hate the idea of reading on them, and I hate what they're doing to the publishing industry, but as a device -- as a way of reading -- I don't think I actually do...

I've explained on here before what my stance is, but I've gotten so caught up in the Kobo Scandal and having to avoid the Nook Man every time I walk into a Barnes & Noble's (he works all around my city) that it would be easy to understand me only as someone who hates progress.

I am a Dead Tree Reader. I don't think that will ever change. I like the smell. I like the slow, comfortable process of it. I like the fact that I can control every part of reading myself. I like that books never run out of batteries. I like reading in the bath.  I like the fact that I can leave a book on a park bench for someone to find. I like that I can lend books to friends. I like that they grow battered and old if you love them. I like that they don't try to sell me anything. I like that there are entire industries dedicated to putting stories in book form. I like flipping through the pages. Most of these things don't hold true for e-books.

But.

Reading, after all, is simply a way of exchanging information. Stories. Wild tales and funny narratives and stuffy anecdotes. Those are the things that are found in books, and sometimes I forget that even if they're on an e-book, they're still there.

Would I begrudge someone who discovered Jane Austen or J.K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman through a Kindle rather than through a DTB? No. I wouldn't. I might feel a little out of the loop, and reminisce how I first read those things through real books, and how different the experience must be otherwise... but you know what, it probably wouldn't be all that different. Not for someone who is used to e-books.

All my friends tell me (laughingly) that someday I will "discover" e-books and love them. That all my vehemence will be for naught. I don't think this will happen, but it might happen. If the publishing industry falls so much that e-books are the only way to get new stories, I'll have to get used to it. If I manage to write something good one day, and am told that e-books are the only way to publish, I'll have to get used to it.

So I'm changing my mind, just a little bit. I still don't like them. I'm still fighting against the fact that they seem to be taking over bookstores, and the uncomfortable truth that I can no longer find the books I'm looking for anywhere but online.

And then there's the fear that stories will be controlled by corporations and companies, that batteries will rule our lives and the publishing world will shatter into pieces. I am scared of that. Terrified. But so far it hasn't happened, nor are there signs of it happening.

And so I don't mind e-books existing. I don't mind people using them. As long as there isn't a great Switch over to e-books rather than real (as the Nook Man is advocating), I think I will be all right.

So I'm going to keep fighting, keep writing this blog, keep despising the fact that e-books are the only way for bookstores to stay in business anymore. But I've mellowed a bit, and I think that's good.

Gungy aliens. I don't know what they're really called -- they must have some kind of official name -- but they were the THING when I was six years old. We'd recently moved to a small town in England (we moved back to my original home a year later), and I was trying hard to fit into the culture despite my very obvious accent.

It was the year Beanie Babies were popular (I had about a million of those) , and Pokemon cards (couldn't have cared less), and some British band called Steps (haven't heard of them since leaving, so it's a bit shocking I remember them in the first place.)

I don't know about the gungy aliens though. I think they might have been a quirk of the place I was living. They were this little alien things made of very squishy plastic, encased in an egg filled with goo. The main idea to them was that they had they had human bodily functions.

And they could die. And they were very squishy. So, of course, everyone wanted one.

Except my parents refused to give me one. "I don't want to stain the carpet with that goo," said my mother, shuddering. "It's not even our carpet. And it looks... disgusting."

My best friend of the time had a gungy alien. We carpooled to school with her every day and she would pull it out of its egg and proudly declare that it was still fully alive, due to the loving care she was giving it. I KNEW that if I had one, my gungy alien would never die.

But I was never allowed to have one, and never had the funds to secretly buy one, because I blew all my allowance on Beanie Babies every month. So I looked sadly at the crate of aliens each time we visited the toy shop, and begged and begged, and hoped desperately at Christmas, but I never did get my gungy alien.

To be honest, if I got the opportunity now, I probably WOULD buy one. Just out of spite.

Borders has betrayed me.

I'm probably a little slow on the uptake here, because according to Google this happened somewhere around September 2010, but not in MY Borders. MY Borders was always a safe zone from all of that. The one chain bookstore I felt understood me. Me as a reader, not just a consumer. Me as an aspiring writer (yes I'm admitting that.) If you look back at my previous entries, it's pretty clear how strongly I felt about Borders.

I hadn't been to Borders for a while. Until tonight.

It was closed, because we stupidly arrived there after 9 on a Sunday night, but we walked up to it to make sure and I could see IT through the window. And my stomach froze.

If you, like me, have been living in ignorance, you can see for yourself what I saw.

There was a pathetic little e-reader stand, just like the one in all the Barnes & Nobles. There was an obvious place for a salesman to stand, hawking their wares, and enormous blaring signs hung up all over the place. They were so obviously encouraging people to buy e-readers RATHER than books that it made me feel quite sick.

And if you click on the link above, it says at the very top of the page, "It's just like reading a real book!" The fact that they even wrote that at all is incredibly cringe-worthy.

If this is the only way they're going to stay in business, I'd almost rather they fold.

I've lost all my respect for Borders.

I can't think what I'm going to DO.

To make this very personal for a moment, a partial reason for my fierce opposition to e-readers is that they're thoroughly crushing all my dreams for myself. I do like writing and I do write a lot. I do hope someday to write something good and get that something published. Printed up in a book. A real book. With ink and paper and a SMELL.

And even if I never accomplish that, I'd love to be at least involved in the publishing process someday. An editor, maybe, or an agent. Or something.

And even if I never accomplish that, I don't think I could bear a life without my books.

Books are free creatures. They aren't regulated by Google or Apple or Barnes & Noble's or anyone else. They're sold through the bookstores, certainly, but they're also sold through used bookstores and yard sales and given as presents and loaned to people who never give them back.

And they have a life of their own. They crawl under sofas and are left on hotel room tables; they appear beneath mattresses and in boxes you'd forgotten you had. They surprise you even after you've read them hundreds of times.

And yes, they're published through the various companies, but once they're out in the world, not even the Big Six can take them back or change them or make you read them the way they want you to.

Nobody can put an advertisement in a book and try to get you to buy an "Optima" (as the ad to the right is now doing). Nobody can shut your book down or use up its batteries or tell you you can't read it anymore because of some sort of "unknown error". It's not LIKE the Internet. Books shouldn't BE on a screen, where companies can track you and make notes of your purchase history and determine how long you can loan them for.

They're entirely your own experience. I've had two copies of the same book, one small and airport-sized, the other tall and spaced-out, and the way I felt reading them was quite different all the way through, though I wouldn't say one was preferable to the other.

The different layouts, illustrations and fonts that books carry add an important touch to the way you perceive them. The idea of putting them all identically onto a cold electronic screen is absolutely repulsive to me.

What I'm writing now -- these words -- will never know anything BUT an electronic screen. That's all right; this is a blog entry, and a ranting one at that. But when an author writes something that they throw themselves into, something that they work on for months and bleed and sweat and cry over, a screen isn't where its journey should end.

And so, even though I feel more alone in this than ever (is it really true that in five years, we'll only be able to buy classics in print?), I can't help feeling this way.

And so I'm going to keep fighting it.

And buying books.

And trying to come up with a nasty play on words for "Kobo". Although it really is already a pretty apt name, because it's a book, only all scrambled-up, to the point where it doesn't resemble a book anymore.

It would be... on an enormous rock in the middle of the sea with seaweed stuck all over it, the kind you'd expect mermaids to be seductively singing to sailors on (while combing their hair with a sinister-looking bone and trying not to flash their razor-sharp teeth.) There would, of course, be no mermaids, because I'm not having my fellow pirates seduced away from my crew, but it should feel like there COULD be, if mermaids were to happen that way someday. That way, ordinary mermaid-fearing sailors wouldn't attempt to steal anything.

But I'd probably be a book pirate, trying to capture all the Proper Books still in print before e-books get rid of them. I'd have to put the treasure in a safe, water-tight chest before slipping it into a crevice in the rocks. Unfortunately, at the rate technology's going, nobody but me would want to steal them in the first place.

SAD.

Hello Blog! It's been a while.

What has happened since I last posted? Not much, really. I think I've more or less GIVEN UP on this being a real blog (after all: I'm not too comfortable having an "Internet presence", it's obviously had no effect on people's opinions of Kindles/Nooks, and my name isn't really Bryony which makes me feel like a liar. Although I do love the name. Hence the using it. Maybe I'll add it as a middle name someday; I don't like my real middle name too much.)

ANYWAY.

The world has gotten even more Kindle-y and Nook-y since I last posted. For example, take a little look at Barnes & Noble's website. I mean, LOOK at that! Encouraging CHILDREN down such a dark path! (That's supposed to be said a bit tongue in cheek, but I mean, really.) When I was reading Oh, the Places You'll Go, I liked to knock my father's hand aside so I could turn the page and see what came next myself. I liked to read ahead while he read it aloud to me. I wouldn't have liked to press a button and see a little electronic screen light up. That's not reading. That's just processing. And that sucks.

I've also had an Argument with the Nook Man at Barnes & Noble's. It was vaguely distressing, but not really... that obnoxious television is still in the store, you see, and I assert my right to loudly exclaim over its unpleasantness. If the man had had a sense of humor, perhaps we would have agreed to disagree on the issue and left on good terms.

We didn't. We did a bit of snapping at each other and I've seen him several times at various B&N's since; the first time he glared at me, and the second, I think he managed to forget who I was, poor man. I suppose he's just doing his job. What a terrible job.

On television news (because I'm sure my non-blog-readership is anxious to know), I have gotten fully caught up with Doctor Who now and am mid-season 6. I still love Matt Smith, but am very upset that Captain Jack has been left out of the season! 

HOWEVER, it's all made up for the fact that Neil Gaiman wrote the last episode. I love him. Love him love him love him. If you do not understand the depth of this love (I wasn't the biggest fan of all of his books, nor have I read them all, so I can understand this. I do love and adore Coraline and Stardust), please go HERE to rectify that.

I LOVE HIM.

Anyway. Perhaps I'll write again soon, perhaps not. Shall have to see. :)

Good lord, constantly. Or I'd pretend I was just like them all along really, and I'd found someone who MATCHED my PERSONALITY at last! Which kind of faded after a few days, c'est la vie. But oh well. Let's see, who?

Hermione from Harry Potter, without a doubt. Then often Luna Lovegood too (who is probably as far apart from Hermione as possible). Various characters from Shannon Hale's Books of Bayern series (usually Enna.) Ella from Ella Enchanted. I can't think of too many other examples, but do believe me when I tell you it happened ALL THE TIME.

Still does, occasionally.

I don't even know what to say.

In a very uncharacteristic move, I'll let the Internet say it for me. Thanks Christopher John Farley, you've got an amazingly hopeful, optimistic attitude towards all of this that's really admirable. I don't. I'm sitting here in horror.

I don't want Borders to be bankrupt!! Borders has so long been my favorite book-buying chain... they used to have whatever I was looking for, no matter how obscure, which is an quality that Barnes & Noble's has never been able to claim.

I love Borders. It's so much quieter, so much more truly bookish, so much REALER than Barnes & Noble's. And yet it's dying...

Here you can find a list of all the Borders that are closing. MY Borders isn't on the list (at least I haven't been able to find it), for which I suppose I should be thankful. Two hundred other Borders, however, are, and I'm sure I'm not the only person to be devastated by their loss.

This is such a terrible topic to write about and I don't want to go on for much longer. I want to be cheerful. Where I live it's the nicest day out in months, and there are only a few hours of daylight left, and I want to enjoy them. But...

Oh, I don't know, it's just awful. Absolutely horrible. And it's all due to e-books. And Borders' failure to start a line of them. Or their success to stick to books, if you think like me. At least they cared about principles... unlike another bookstore I could name...

I need to go and distract myself. I'll try and post something a little more objective on this later.

Happy Valentine's Day to me and to the two mysterious people who have reportedly visited this blog! Whom I'm quite sure are just as real-book-obsessed as me, isn't that right? HMM.

More importantly, Happy Valentine's Day to my books, whom I shall ALWAYS love dearly and will never give up for some measly digital format. I started off the day reading a bit of Agatha Christie, which isn't very valentiney, but maybe I'll finish it with a little Jane Austen.

I'm going to start rambling by saying this, but I've got to confess that I really, really like Miss Jane. Well, mostly. Persuasion's dreadful. But Emma? Quite possibly my favorite book EVER. ADORE it. Have read it twice all the way through, have read favorite bits over and over and OVER again, have watched the Romola Garai movie adaptation four times over.

As for the others: loved Northanger Abbey, quite liked Pride and Prejudice, worked my way through Sense and Sensibility and ended up being happy I read it. I'm four chapters in to Mansfield Park and am liking it so far. Oh, Jane.

You know, I don't think she'd be very appreciative of the fact that her books have been spat out onto Kindle screens. She was so proud of her little bit of ivory, wasn't she? A little bit of computer screen doesn't quite cut it. I'll bet she's spinning in her grave, possibly haunting various publishing companies, begging them to take pity on her and restore all of her work to their original paper format. SIGH.

ANYWAY, Happy Valentine's Day to all. Forget the roses; go out and celebrate by purchasing a new paperback!

Postscript -- this has got to be said and complained about, so I'm just going to do it now. The ads on LiveJournal have gone TOO FAR. In the upper right corner of this screen, there is an incredibly objectionable picture of a naked person with an odd haircut sticking his nose (probably biting) into a swooning, equally naked woman with far too much makeup on.

I'm sure LiveJournal's excuse is "DON'T WORRY, YOU CAN'T SEE ANYTHING, IT'S JUST FROM THE TORSO UP!" but really, this is appalling. The very dark grey background with what seems to be a sizzling moon behind it just makes it worse. Much, much worse is the writing at the bottom -- "Find your Bella".

So that I can bite her?!?!?!?!?! What! EW! As the hallowed Mr. Jacob "I Have No Shirt" Black says: "There are no words for this."

Well, I'm starting with the best, of course, so I'll say I'm an extremely determined person. Hence my quest to keep books alive. I don't give up very easily and so I almost always accomplish something, even if it isn't what I set out to do in the first place.

I've got a good sense of humor and can usually find something to laugh about. I'm loyal and will defend you to the death if I like you and the situation should come up (hopefully it wouldn't, I like being alive.) I'm intelligent and really love learning, although I'm not a huge fan of being told what to do, so homework and that kind of thing aren't particularly enjoyable. I have strong opinions and believe it's important to know what you think. And then, if possible, act on it.

Bad things -- I'm capable of being quite anxious at times, which I hate, but we're all human, right? I do have moody phases sometimes and tend to doubt myself a lot, although I've definitely gotten better over the years. That's a really awful quality to have, because, as I said, it's important to know what you think, and if you're consistently doubting yourself that's not very helpful, is it? I also have a bit of a tendency towards pessimism, which comes out from time to time, although I try and quench it. And obliviousness. To what's going on around me. Yeah. I've been told it's part of my charm, though, so. :)

Would my friends agree? Yes, I think so. They'd probably also say "AND YOU CAN'T DO MATH!" , which is also, unfortunately, true.

What's happened since the last time I posted? Oh, too much. And far too little.

As far as Nooks and Kindles and other hellish devices go, there's been no news, which I suppose means good news. There's a GORGEOUS little Facebook group out there called "Just say NO to electronic books" -- suiting my sentiments exactly -- and another called "The "Official" Anti-Kindle Group", which I love a little less due to the insecure quotation marks around the word official and the fact that I'm not as much anti-Kindle as pro-book.

At any rate, though, if you're into Facebook groups, the first one gives me a little buzz of happiness every time I see a post in my newsfeed. Absolutely nothing happens in it except quotes from various book-loving people. The most recent one was from Elizabeth Hardwick (whom Wikipedia tells me was "an American literary critic, novelist, and short-story writer", though I have never heard of her).

16 hours ago (according to Facebook in all its precision), she said, "The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination." Sums it up quite well, doesn't she? Although I can't say I know exactly what a "moral illumination" is -- may have to think on that one.

The other group is incredibly interesting in the way of all the different opinions. So far there are 245 members. Most of the page is covered by people saying satisfying things like "I hate the Kindle!" and "there's nothing like the smell of a real book!" 

There's more to it, though -- a lot of them seem fiercely worried about "corporate control" or something like that -- the thought that people or companies could change the things written (downloaded?) on your Kindle to suit their evil-minded grabs for power.

Or that every so often it would be flooded with blaring advertisements wanting you to buy insurance. Like LiveJournal, incidentally. (Dear Geico and Progressive, please leave me alone, if I wanted insurance from you I would have it already, not looking for it on LiveJournal...)

Anyway, at the moment I'm not really concerned about all that, although if something comes up that sounds as if it might happen, I'd obviously pay very close attention and fight to have my reading tastes not manipulated by the powers that be. So far, though, my main battle is for bookstores to stay alive and in business and not begging pathetically for me to buy a little electronic screen to read on instead. And that, for now, is what I'm focusing on.

I've missed two Fridays to babble, but since this is the end of this entry I'll just do a little of that now by saying I've also been completely obsessed with Egypt these last couple weeks. Mubarak is now OUT of office (and yes, I supported that completely), and hopefully things will come to a happy ending before long. There are still things to be worried about, but I think they're absolutely on the right track and will come up with a solution that will at least be better than what they had before. It's all very cool.

What else? Not much, to be honest. February has long been my least-favorite month. Absolutely nothing happens in it.