I personally would welcome enhanced books, though like many I would prefer my fiction to remain un-enhanced. At least in terms of books used for educational purposes, I think multimedia additions could be wonderful.
Books are used for a variety of purposes. Some are to inform, some are to instruct, some are to preserve information, some are to entertain. And some are for a combination of those purposes. I don't understand why we'd so narrowly define what a book is just to preserve our own preferred experience. "Real" books (of the paper printed variety) don't display such prejudice and do as much they're able to to use media to enhance their experience, whether it's the inclusion of big glossy photographs, illustrations, fold out maps and diagrams, etc. When a textbook includes a CD or log-in code for something on the publisher's website, it doesn't do so to preserve the "book"-ness of the book by keeping its more dynamic content out of its pages. It does so only because of the limitations of its printed format. If a cook book ebook took advantage of its digital format by including instructional videos on, say, proper knife skills, would doing so really make it less of a book?
Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
So if they aren't comic books, what are they? Or are you saying that comic books aren't books?
|
I think that is what he's saying. I happen to disagree though. If the children's classic
Where the Wild Things Are (which has fewer words per page than a graphic novel) is a book, then so too are graphic novels.
I wouldn't want to see the e-publishing industry change so that enhanced books became the norm, but I do think it's silly to turn up our noses at the idea as a whole. There are definitely books where it'd be both useful and appropriate.