Quote:
Originally Posted by Alisa
Often when I hear people wax poetic about the glories of the paper book, they are painting an image of some glorious wood-paneled library with walls full of leather-bound volumes. Cushy wing-back chair, fireplace, retriever at your feet. Basically the sort of thing you would expect to find in a stately home a hundred years ago. Let's face it. While some of us may have a handful of artisanal books gracing our shelves, the vast majority of the books we own are purely utilitarian vessels for text. Maybe they have an interesting cover, but very few books these days have decent paper or bindings. Even a $30 hardback is fuzzy printing on low-grade paper with a cloth binding. I've seen the book collections of my ephemeraphilic friends and they're full of mass market junk. They seem to be sentimental for the library they wish they had rather than the library they do have. The magic in their books is in the stories they contain, not the wood pulp and cheap ink.
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There's definitely truth to that. However, for those that
have experienced the wonders of a paper book, aged to perfection, with that distinctive smell and feel... there's nothing better. I went to a school with one of the most extensive libraries anywhere -- they have a Gutenberg Bible, for goodness sake. Cracking open any book from that library really felt like magic. As much as I love my ereader (and trust me, I do), that is a role that ebooks simply cannot fill. Practically speaking, however, I would say that ebooks have the clear advantage.