The Reading Joy & Delight Thread

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Ha! Well my description made you feel something I suppose.

I challenge you when next passing a used bookshop to hold your breath and enter. Make you way to the very centre...then take in a lovely deep breath in...

I've actually done this in my DREAMS! For me, there is nothing to compare to entering a used book store and getting 'lost' for hours and hours!

[issybird]

I like the smell of old books and the smell of what I think of as "library" is both happy and evocative. But what I miss most about paper books is being able to flip back to an earlier part of the book to the reference I want, going by sense memory based on thickness of pages read at that point and location on page.

[j.p.s]

I'm not sure whether I would ever use them if they still existed, but I used to enjoy browsing card catalogs in libraries, and I have fond memories of doing so, and sometimes miss them.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by issybird

I like the smell of old books and the smell of what I think of as "library" is both happy and evocative. But what I miss most about paper books is being able to flip back to an earlier part of the book to the reference I want, going by sense memory based on thickness of pages read at that point and location on page.

I find it much easier to search for a word or a phrase; flipping back and finding what I wanted always took me far longer.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Ha! Well my description made you feel something I suppose.

I challenge you when next passing a used bookshop to hold your breath and enter. Make you way to the very centre...then take in a lovely deep breath in...

No thanks. I actually once fainted in a used bookshop. True, not so much because I was overwhelmed by the stink of old, musty paper, but because I had problems with low blood pressure when I was in my early twenties. Still, the smell is associated with dizziness and nausea for me to this day.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I'm not sure whether I would ever use them if they still existed, but I used to enjoy browsing card catalogs in libraries, and I have fond memories of doing so, and sometimes miss them.

Two things: The sense memory, again; that satisfying "chunk" when you took a drawer out and put it on a table, and the feel of the index cards as you flipped through them. Oh, and one more -- seeing cards that went way back and were handwritten. The jumble was aesthetically pleasing.

The other was the serendipity of it, as you flipped through the cards you'd run across a book you'd never heard of, but was exactly the kind of thing you wanted to read.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by issybird

Two things: The sense memory, again; that satisfying "chunk" when you took a drawer out and put it on a table, and the feel of the index cards as you flipped through them. Oh, and one more -- seeing cards that went way back and were handwritten. The jumble was aesthetically pleasing.

The other was the serendipity of it, as you flipped through the cards you'd run across a book you'd never heard of, but was exactly the kind of thing you wanted to read.

I too remember spending hours browsing the index cards, but again, I actually hated it. I searched them because I wanted to find something specific, but I never enjoyed it. And I often got a headache browsing them, with their microscopic print.

I just don't get the attraction paper seems to hold for many people even now. I've never felt it, even though I grew up with paper books like most of you.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I searched them because I wanted to find something specific, but I never enjoyed it. ...
I just don't get the attraction paper seems to hold for many people even now. I've never felt it, even though I grew up with paper books like most of you.

DITTO.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by issybird

Two things: The sense memory, again; that satisfying "chunk" when you took a drawer out and put it on a table, and the feel of the index cards as you flipped through them. Oh, and one more -- seeing cards that went way back and were handwritten. The jumble was aesthetically pleasing.

The other was the serendipity of it, as you flipped through the cards you'd run across a book you'd never heard of, but was exactly the kind of thing you wanted to read.

I worked in a college library that still had physical cards and I agree with all of this.

Don't get me wrong, I love the new tools we have, but I definitely benefited from the card catalog back in the day. I also appreciate that with the cards, there was never any record anywhere of what you had searched for.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

My ereader is still absent, having been sent off for a warranty repair. I fear it may have been lost by the postal service in the country it was shipped to.

On a whim I picked up a pulp horror paperback from a "borrow and return" selection at a local coffee shop. I only picked up the book to keep myself amused whilst I drank my coffee, but ended up wanting to finish it so away with me it went! The novel is surprisingly well written and is providing that wonderful lust of "just one more page".

The pages of the book are that glorious orangey-brown colour from being well seasoned by time. The pages smell divine; that heady, woody, delightfully musty perfume of adventure only old books seem to provide.

I have to admit, I've very much missed the simple joy in the experience of reading a physical book.

And when you drop because of the noxious fumes, don't say you weren't warmed. And don't forget the mold. So once a book starts to turn, it's time to throw it away before it makes you sick or dead.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by neil_swann80

Ha! Well my description made you feel something I suppose.

I challenge you when next passing a used bookshop to hold your breath and enter. Make you way to the very centre...then take in a lovely deep breath...

And then you get the pleasure of an ambulance ride to the hospital as you as pass-out.

[Desertway]

Unlike me, my parents weren't "book people" and we didn't have much money, so the library was my very close friend as a kid and teen. I have deeply fond memories of library runs and coming home with a tower of books in which to lose myself.

[neil_swann80]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And then you get the pleasure of an ambulance ride to the hospital as you as pass-out.

Come to think of it, my local A&E is always extremely busy. Must be due to the constant stream of Librarians and library patrons. They simply must be stopped!

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

And when you drop because of the noxious fumes, don't say you weren't warmed. And don't forget the mold. So once a book starts to turn, it's time to throw it away before it makes you sick or dead.

"The Name of the Rose" and several other novels. I think one of the Joan Aiken novels has the poisoned book trope.

[DNSB]

One of my acquaintances works in a university library. About 15% of their books from the 1830s-1870s have green covers that used arsenic in the colourant. Like many libraries, they have a safe handling sheet for these books. It pretty much follows the one in the Poison Book Project.