The Editorial Ass blog is running a fascinating series of posts. Collectively referred to as “Celebrate Reading Month,” each post in the series is written by a guest blogger, each describing a book which had an impact on the blogger’s life, understanding of books, reading habits — whatever.
MoonRat, who runs the blog, has made it convenient to see all the current posts at once, using a “celebrate reading” tag.
Of many interesting things about the series, there’s this, completely coincidental: it acts as a counterweight to those who might despair at the state of reading. (Including many of those reading and participating in Nathan Bransford’s current discussions, and subsequent comments, about e-readers, e-books, e-publishing, e-authoring and -agenting.)
Update: The sensory experience of reading — feel, smell, and so on — is one thing which people say holds them back from considering an e-reader. You might be interested in seeing this gallery of Kindle users’ photos of their new toys, many in quite inventive (and no doubt sensorily satisfying) covers.
Update 2: My contribution to Moonrat’s “Celebrate Reading Extravaganza” is up.
Robert Walker says
First off, I wanted to say that I appreciated your comment on Nathan Bransford’s post (and not simply because you gave me kudos). I’ve actually already written a post regarding the question of “what is a ‘book’ anymore,” which I’ll be publishing in the next few days, so stop by my site/blog and check it out later this week, if you’re so inclined.
Re: Kindles and e-readers, and I think you’d agree with me on this, the current devices are still rather clumsy compared to whatever’s going to come in the future. People are focusing on the wrong thing. Once a “reader” comes along that’s a true pleasure to use/look at, that’s when things will really start to change.
John says
Thanks for the comment.
I’ve loved the discussion (well, nearly all of it!) over the last couple days on Nathan’s blog. Your contributions and those of a couple others really struck home for me.
As to the Kindle: sure, nowhere near the ideal. I do think that if you put them out there for a week’s rental, say — like Blockbuster does with console games — Amazon would end up making a killing.
Will keep my eyes open for your “what IS a book?” post. Thanks for the heads-up!
Robert Walker says
Hey, John. My new post is up. Come on by, and feel free to comment. Especially since you’ve obviously been thinking about these things, too.