I don't care how books smell either

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

1- Laser printers are dirt cheap, these days.

2- Book binding is a fun hobby for many.
http://www.aboutbookbinding.com/

3- I've done a few myself. The manual labor aspect is quite therapeutic; right up there with woodworking. I'll probably give it a try again one of these centuries.

Sorry, I should have corrected myself. I meant I wish doing a half-assed job were convenient and cheap. I'm familiar with printing and with binding, but I have yet to see a convenient, cheap homemade job that isn't rubbish.

[*reg*]

The smell and feel of a physical book is what stopped me from purchasing an electronic book ages ago.

Have finally made the leap (although I haven't received it yet). Yet my husband has already predicted that if I really really love a book I will probably buy the hard copy version as well. And he is probably right.

[san4os]

I like read books with their strange old smell. its gives to story some miracle =)



___________________
jacobs coffee

[leebase]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

Lee, my jetBook Lite has at the top a running counter of the percentage of the book (to the second decimal point!) I have read. I'm sure that without that I would not enjoy the eBook as much.
.

All my book apps have some way to tell me how much I've read....but it's not the same even if it's far more accurate. I thought it was just me until my daughter told me the same thing. To her, she would rather read a paper book just for that reason alone. She doesn't get the same sense of accomplishment with ebooks.

I really miss knowing "how big" a book I'm reading is.

Lee

[Lastblade]

I gave/donated 95% of my books last week after I got the nook. As I get older, the more I realize that a lot of my stuff are clutter (living here in NYC helps you with that realization). Physical books are nice if you have the room but at the end of the day, I care about the words more than the paper. Content is king, not the medium.

[mike_bike_kite]

I have a leather cover for my Kindle and now all my ebooks smell of old leather - rather nice actually.

[jasonfedelem]

Originally Posted by Lastblade

Content is king, not the medium.

Exactly the way I look at it, although I have kept some of my original/older/classic editions

[frankenbooks]

Kathleen Parker has a column in the Wash Post today about how once again she a book lover has to smell her books first. egads, what's wrong with that meme?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070603211.html

She's gonna lost most people HERE:

"......I belong to that subgroup of individuals who smell a book before reading. (If you are not a book-smeller, we have nothing further to discuss.)

The tactile experience of reading is also crucial to my reading pleasure. Holding a book compares to nothing short of a baby's contact with his favorite blankie. Consistent with Ackerman's findings, a hardback is superior to a paperback precisely because it is more solid, weightier and, therefore, more permanent, more important, better."

[montsnmags]

I disagree with some further things she says (there seems assumptions based on her subjective experience that are being conflated into generalities), but I think when she says, "If you are not a book-smeller, we have nothing further to discuss", she is simply saying that for those that do, there is elaboration on the experience, but for those that don't no explanation will satisfy.

That is to say, "I like caramel". If you don't...cool, there's no point in discussing with you my love of caramel then.

Incidentally, I still love paper books. I always will. I don't confuse the memory of reading with the smell - I embrace it. I realise that like a lot of smells, it probably comes from chemical breakdown...rotting, if you will, but still don't care about why, but only how, I sense it. Being a RAAF-brat (Royal Australian Air Force), and then continuing that theme of moving, I've moved a lot of books a lot of places...my ebook device is not a substitute for having to cart those physical objects everywhere (it would be amusing if so, seeing as I am likely at my final destination).

It is romantic...subjective...irrational...the magnificent (to me) self-delusion of imaginary experience, to have this emotional attachment to physical objects. But, to me, it is no better nor worse (because of that subjectivity) than attachment to the imaginary experience of the content...the story. I like it, and I don't condemn the person who smells books, or doesn't, or who likes hard copy, or who doesn't, any more than I'd condemn someone because they don't like caramel.

I don't really understand why (other than the publicity of controversy) the "book-smellers" (anti-ebookers) sometimes write their condemnations of the electronic book. I must admit, I don't understand why (other than understandable defensiveness) people respond with condemnation of "book-smelling" (pbook-buyers).

Do what you enjoy. It's all, to me (be it pbooks, ebooks, software, bookshelving, hyperlinked data, physical bookmarks, et cetera), a brilliant obsession, whether I partake of your particular variety of desire or not.

Cheers,
Marc (who in very simplistic terms loves ebooks for hypertext, and pbooks for comfort, but conditions apply )

[Poppa1956]

I grew up loving books. I used to spend hours perusing books my grandfather got when my mother was little, or even before she was born. I learned to appreciate the arts of typography and binding that would help make great classic books works of art, or nearly such.
As the son of a journeyman printer, I had the privilege of occasional trips to work with my father. I got to see him compose pages from fonts that were held in bins (and "uppercase" letters were in the upper case of bins, "lowercase" letters in the lowers). Changing the font might require a significant physical effort. The Lithograph (or Linotype) was a wonderful labor-saving machine involving molten lead, some things called "pigs" that didn't look porcine in anyway I recognized, and my father typing using one finger on each hand.
Holding a well-crafted tome will often evoke all these fond memories. The scent of ink from a new book, or the musty aroma of ancient volumes can move me to tears if I allow myself to get mawkish about it.
I enjoy the fact that I can read a page in smallish print in the morning, and enlarge the type as my eyes fatigue near the end of the day. I enjoy being able to carry three Bibles, as many devotionals, some headline news, Bulfinch's Age of Fables, a few Dummies® books, the MR Book-of-the-Month selection, and almost whatever my little heart desires and it weighing 343 grams in toto.
I do not miss the smell of ink, or the textures of the paper and covers of traditional books while I am enjoying my Nook, nor have I forgotten those sensations.
Am I allowed to enjoy each reading experience while partaking of the same?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Have you seen the ePub Zen Garden? (Although I suspect that a number of the styles wouldn't work on some portable devices; they may not support all the coding options.)

Setting aside *good* formatting--for a lot of people, basic text is sufficient, and "well-formatted" means

• The line breaks are in the right places,
• Extra line between paragraphs *or* indented paragraphs,
• Lines don't wrap between double hyphens,
• No long gaps between words,
• Punctuation is accurate enough that it's not consciously noticed,
• New chapters start on a new page.

I read ebooks for two years on a Sony Clie 320x320 pixel screen, and would've been happy to continue; I had screen problems & battery problems.

I have to disagree somewhat here.

#1 is OK
#2 is a bit off. Extra lines between paragraphs is very poor formatting.
#3 is way off. double hyphens is poor formatting. They should be em dashes.
#4 is OK
#5 is way off. Punctuation should be correct and not just unnoticeably wrong.
#6 is OK

Overall, those definitions of well-formatted means a book I'd have to reformat to be well-formatted.

I just took a look at the link posted for ePub Zen Garden and I find that the sample is AWFUL. Just go to chapter 4 for a good look at poor formatting. Using the noir styling, I see the C in Chapter is way too big to not be a distraction. The indents are too big and the line spaces between paragraphs is distracting. The text gets lost in the poor formatting.

[GlenBarrington]

Which really goes to show that finding a standard acceptable to all won't be easy. Personally, I think those first 6 set of standards are acceptable. Heck, I'd be happy if the publishers actually used a spell check program before they sell me a book!

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have to disagree somewhat here.

#1 is OK
#2 is a bit off. Extra lines between paragraphs is very poor formatting.
#3 is way off. double hyphens is poor formatting. They should be em dashes.
#4 is OK
#5 is way off. Punctuation should be correct and not just unnoticeably wrong.
#6 is OK

Overall, those definitions of well-formatted means a book I'd have to reformat to be well-formatted.

I just took a look at the link posted for ePub Zen Garden and I find that the sample is AWFUL. Just go to chapter 4 for a good look at poor formatting. Using the noir styling, I see the C in Chapter is way too big to not be a distraction. The indents are too big and the line spaces between paragraphs is distracting. The text gets lost in the poor formatting.

[fjtorres]

Different folks have different ideas about how they prfer their *content* to be presented. That is one of the strengths of ebooks that the publishers still don't get; they keep trying to pass off pretend-paper PDF as an ebook format or looking to turn ebooks into facsimiles of the print editions. It is wasted effort.

The best ebook readers devices and apps let the reader choose how they want the content presented. And yes, in this context, "presented" does include TTS.
I'm buying the story/article/essay/whatever, not a file and not a digital micro-fiche.

A good ebook is fully-proofed and spell-checked; it will feature proper typography (paragraph indents or outdents, em-dashes and matching quotes and apostrophes) and chapter breaks. Table of contents and hyperlinks as appropriate.

Beyond that, it should allow the reader to override whatever elements they choose; some folks prefered full justification, others left aligned; some prefer white space margins to control scan width, others want to use every last bit of display space; some prefer serif fonts, others sans-serif. All variants are right...for that specific person. Anything that breaks immersion is bad, everything that helps it is good.

Publishers need to get the basics right and then get out of the way. And they should stop trying to force paper formatting onto ebooks; readers shouldn't have to rebuild a book just to be able to read it as they want to read it. We're not buying digital microfiches or archival reproductions of a print edition; we are buying a story or an essay or whatever. We're buying the content not the packaging.

Because in the end, we really don't care about the smell.

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite

I have a leather cover for my Kindle and now all my ebooks smell of old leather - rather nice actually.

I agree -- I have a leather cover on my Sony, so ALL my e-books smell good.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

I agree -- I have a leather cover on my Sony, so ALL my e-books smell good.

I have a cover made entirely out of Fruit Roll-Ups-- so my books taste as good as they smell!