MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - "Reading things electronically is a dissatisfying experience"

aapezzuto · 03-20-2008, 10:29 AM

everybody has certain senses that they are more sensitive to. I have a hard time getting completely wrapped up in a book, unless I read very slowly, and almost listen to the words. On of my best "reading" experiences in recent years was when my wife read me "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley. The experience I think was further enriched because the main charictor was female, and the narration takes place not from her... but very close by.

I am an obsessive cook. In college I worked in a bakery, a candy store, and a catering company(I also worked in the machine shop). Recently I have had time to play with chocolate again, and to save some money I have been trying to use chocolate flavored confection. Honestly only about one in three people can tell that its not "chocolate" when given it alone, and in a direct comparison only about 2 in 3 can tell there is a difference. To me the way that it melts is so far inferior that they are not the same food. It has a much wider plastic range (the temperature where it feels fudgey), and it never looses some of its viscosity, no matter how long you keep it in your mouth. Humorously, my wife is one of those people that in a bind taste test wouldn't notice.

My wife is a conosour of the written word. She loves seeing how an author matures over time, their exact choice of words, how they inject humor into a tense situation. She consumes books with the same speed and enjoyment that I am able to use my senses to take apart food at a restaurant, so that I can make it at home. She has an attachment to having a collection of books... she likes having them alphabetized, and like her filing cabinet, they give her great joy. However, when given the choice between a book she has in paper or in digital form, she will choose digital ALMOST every time. The major exception is when she will be doing something that may cause harm to her digital reader. I had to save up the money to replace it, so that she felt safe taking it with her to south america for a month, because the idea of its loss was even worse than the thought of being without books that she loves for 4-6 weeks.

paper books will eventually go away, but it is FAR into the future. Once every country in the world has the resources that they can afford to give each person a tool that takes so much work and knowledge to produce. In the mean time we have reduced the cost of paper books so far that for people who do not consume 100's of books a year, or have extra resources to throw at a rely convenient toy, a paper book will remain the standard. However, like the Ipod, the ebook readers day is coming, and it would not surprise me if in another 5-20 years everyone in a university is required to have one.

03-20-2008, 10:29 AM	#45
aapezzuto Zealot Posts: 116 Karma: 693 Join Date: Sep 2007 Device: none	everybody has certain senses that they are more sensitive to. I have a hard time getting completely wrapped up in a book, unless I read very slowly, and almost listen to the words. On of my best "reading" experiences in recent years was when my wife read me "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley. The experience I think was further enriched because the main charictor was female, and the narration takes place not from her... but very close by. I am an obsessive cook. In college I worked in a bakery, a candy store, and a catering company(I also worked in the machine shop). Recently I have had time to play with chocolate again, and to save some money I have been trying to use chocolate flavored confection. Honestly only about one in three people can tell that its not "chocolate" when given it alone, and in a direct comparison only about 2 in 3 can tell there is a difference. To me the way that it melts is so far inferior that they are not the same food. It has a much wider plastic range (the temperature where it feels fudgey), and it never looses some of its viscosity, no matter how long you keep it in your mouth. Humorously, my wife is one of those people that in a bind taste test wouldn't notice. My wife is a conosour of the written word. She loves seeing how an author matures over time, their exact choice of words, how they inject humor into a tense situation. She consumes books with the same speed and enjoyment that I am able to use my senses to take apart food at a restaurant, so that I can make it at home. She has an attachment to having a collection of books... she likes having them alphabetized, and like her filing cabinet, they give her great joy. However, when given the choice between a book she has in paper or in digital form, she will choose digital ALMOST every time. The major exception is when she will be doing something that may cause harm to her digital reader. I had to save up the money to replace it, so that she felt safe taking it with her to south america for a month, because the idea of its loss was even worse than the thought of being without books that she loves for 4-6 weeks. paper books will eventually go away, but it is FAR into the future. Once every country in the world has the resources that they can afford to give each person a tool that takes so much work and knowledge to produce. In the mean time we have reduced the cost of paper books so far that for people who do not consume 100's of books a year, or have extra resources to throw at a rely convenient toy, a paper book will remain the standard. However, like the Ipod, the ebook readers day is coming, and it would not surprise me if in another 5-20 years everyone in a university is required to have one.