Quote:
|
1. We may be discovering that e-books are well suited to some types of books (like genre fiction) but not well suited to other types (like nonfiction and literary fiction)
|
This hapless writer seems to have touched upon a distinction which, despite their prejudices, has nothing to do with the ghettoization of genre or the anointing of literary fiction.
The question is not which niche the book fits into but how it's structured and formatted, and how its formal structure and format translate into the formatting of an ebook.
Current e-book formats are designed especially for
continuous and singular texts with a minimum of formatting.
Book-specific objects -- books with peculiar formatting and/or structures which resist singular continuity and are idiomatic to the physicality of bound pages -- are less suited for e-pub, Kindle or even PDF formats.
This can be as true of an indie horror novel (Danielewski's
House of Leaves) as it is of Raymond Roussel's
New Impressions of Africa and Julio Cortazar's
Hopscotch.
It has nothing to do with the stratification of supposed lowbrow and highbrow content.
Formatting a bilingual book of poetry is straightforward in a physical book but difficult in an epub. The problem is the facing-page format, not the level of the language or intent.
Another example of an e-resistant book: One in which transparent pages containing different kinds of information are layered over single opaque charts and illustrations. Yet another example: the popup book.
Here's how I think these issues might resolve themselves with readers:
The reader who notices that certain of the books they like are nonexistent or unsatisfactory as e-books might choose not to bother with what they deem to be non-inclusive formats. Physical books would win, but only because the content is always idiomatic.
The choice is for formatting compatibility and familiarity. The content is unimportant.