Last week, my mom got a Kindle. Although it took her a few days to start using it (she says new technology intimidates her at first) she is now extremely into it and has been reading up a storm. I've been thinking lately about traditional paper books, and whether they have a place in the future. I'm going to just weigh out some pros and cons here between paper books and electronic books.
Storage Space
No doubt about it, this is one of the biggest reasons to get a Kindle or some other e-reader. If you're limited in terms of storage, a single tiny machine a little bigger than a novel but much thinner is much more attractive than shelves of books. It's also the way to go for portability. My inner collector still loves having lots of books, though.
Cost
A lot of ebooks are being sold for almost as much as - or even more than - physical copies. This is greed. An ebook requires no publishing, no shipping or handling, no warehouses to be stocked in. It's a digital file, and has far, far less overhead for the company. They should be significantly less expensive.
Other ebooks are cheap or free. Free is always a good price. You can get paper books free (or incredibly cheap) as well by visiting libraries, yard sales, and the like.
There is also, of course, the cost of the reader itself. A Kindle can be bought fairly cheaply (Amazon makes their money on ebooks, not readers) but it's still a pretty decent investment to make before you can start reading. Something to keep in mind.
Visibility
This is something most people my age don't think about. My mom loves to read, but she has difficulty with small type. The Kindle came to the rescue with an adjustable font size, allowing my mom to read clearly once more. It made her very happy to be able to read again, and it's something I thank the Kindle for. It's also something paper books utterly fail at, because A) not every book has a Large Print edition and B) you can't make your existing books into Large Print books with the press of a button.
Book Selection
The number of books that only exist as ebooks is growing and will continue to grow. Think back to the early 2000s, and how movies were released on both DVD and VHS for a while, but more and more movies were DVD only over time. However, at the same time, there are movies that came out on VHS in the eighties and nineties but were never rereleased on DVD when the new technology came. I think this will be the case with books - there will never be an electronic version of every paper book ever made, therefore paper books are not completely irrelevant and may be very useful in certain situations.
The Cloud
For those who don't know, "The Cloud" is shorthand for storing things on the Internet instead of on your own computer or owning a physical object.
This is something I've been hung up on for a while. Something I think is very important - if I pay for something, I want to own it. I don't want the company to be able to edit or remove it. I don't want to be charged a fee for continuing to own something. I want to be in control, not the company and their cloud. After they sell something to me, I should have the right to do as I wish - to lend it out, to read it over and over, to resell it.
For the same reason, I've been wary of the recent popularity of digital game downloads (although I've bought a few I couldn't get any other way). Services like Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Nintendo's Virtual Console are neat and all, but should something happen to my video game system, the games stored on it are gone. I want to have a physical object, like a cartridge or disc. It is much more reassuring and solidly mine. I also hate that digital books and games can't be resold. I can't go to a garage sale and buy a used ebook. This movement towards digital and intangible things can crush the resale market, a market I have frequently relied on for both books and games as a way to buy things cheaply.
Conclusion
I've said before that I generally embrace new technology. This is true. I think ebooks have great potential. But I want to be the sole owner of things that I pay for, and so I personally believe that paper books will remain relevant to me as long as I live, even if they don't to anyone else.
That said, I may browse my mother's Kindle and see if there's any free nonfiction books about animals...
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Magazine Onslaught
Magazines used to be a nifty media form - every month, you'd get a book in the mail all about a certain topic, and you'd keep getting new issues throughout the year. It was a nice feeling of familiarity. You'd get to know the authors' names and look forward to recurring sections with excitement. You'd learn new things. You'd discover stuff you'd never heard of, and find out more about things you did.
Today, the Internet has neutered magazines much the same way it has newspapers. For magazines, the situation is actually worse - even the most frequently published magazines are weekly, while newspapers are daily. This means newspapers are more nimble than magazines when it comes to news. Of course, the Internet obliterates them both in speed and scope.
When I was a kid, I loved magazines. I subscribed to quite a few over the years. Here's a quick look at what I grew up reading.
Your Big Backyard
This was my first magazine. Your Big Backyard is aimed at young kids, and is about animals and nature. My mom correctly guessed that I'd enjoy the subject. I don't remember much about Your Big Backyard since I was so young when I received it.
Ranger Rick
This is the "big kid" version of Your Big Backyard. Once I'd proven my reading ability, I was upgraded to it. I subscribed to Ranger Rick for several years and loved every issue. I remember one night one of my teachers visited my house. She'd been cleaning out her home and had found a whole bunch of Ranger Rick magazines from the late 1980s. They were in great shape, and I eagerly claimed them. The magazines stayed with me for years.
Highlights
1996 was the Year of the Magazine for me. While I had only Ranger Rick before this time, in 1996 I suddenly was subscribed to a half-dozen magazines. I can't recall exactly why my mom enjoyed giving me so many, but I'll guess that it was lots of cheap and fun reading material - and I always loved reading.
Highlights is a classic children's magazine. Memorable for including a wide variety of content, from standalone short stories to modern-day news pieces to the guidance offered by Goofus and Gallant, Highlights was a grab bag of stuff that could vary wildly in terms of catching my interest from issue to issue.
Boys' Life
The only one of my magazines that catered exclusively to my gender was always viewed by me as the most "adult" of the lot. While it was certainly well within my reading level, it talked about some slightly more advanced subjects and included stories about things like the novel Brian's Winter - which is about a boy stranded alone fending for himself.
The two regular sections I recall best are the comics and the section near the back filled with old-school advertisements similar to those from old comic books, where gimmicky toys like x-ray specs are peddled to the kids. I never ordered anything, but I sometimes daydreamed about it.
Disney Adventures
As you might guess, this magazine (which was printed small, like how TV Guide used to be) had a Disney theme, although it talked about other things as well. The first issue I ever got featured Jurassic Park: The Lost World on it. There was a contest inside to win a life-size statue of the famous raptor dinosaurs featured in the series. I entered, and as you probably guessed, lost. I don't know where I would have put a life-size raptor anyway.
As time went on, the comics at the back of the magazine got bigger and bigger, eventually taking over roughly half or more of each issue. I mostly preferred the articles, and lost interest in the magazine as a result.
National Geographic Kids
This one was a little later than the others, I think - I remember getting issues from 1997, not 96. It was mostly about science and nature, as you'd expect from National Geographic. I don't remember too much about it, though.
Nickelodeon Magazine
This was the first of the tidal wave of magazines to show up on my doorstep. My first issue was from October 1995. Nickelodeon Magazine grew to become my favorite of the many magazines I subscribed to. It covered many different topics, had a comics section in the middle, and frequently featured some sort of punch-out gimmick or prank label to have fun with.
The Magazine Extinction
As time went on, I got fewer and fewer magazines. When 1997 rolled around, I elected to drop Highlights and Boys' Life but added National Geographic Kids. Before 1998, my mom came to me one day. She was hard up for money, and told me that to save money she had to cancel my magazine subscriptions. I could keep only one. It was easy to ditch Disney Adventures and National Geographic Kids, but that left two: Nickelodeon Magazine and Ranger Rick. After some thought, I decided it was time to say goodbye to Ranger Rick, leaving me with only Nickelodeon into the next year.
A couple years later I told my mom to cancel Nickelodeon Magazine as well. I don't remember why, but my guess is that I wanted to help save her money and was getting bored with the magazine, so I offered it as a sacrifice.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
In 2003, I was a young teenager with no magazine subscriptions. However, I'd gotten into the habit of buying EGM, a video game magazine, off of the shelf every now and then. First, I bought one in 2000 because it had a news story on a new Pokemon game. Then, in 2001, I got another that talked about Nintendo's new video game system, the Game Boy Advance. As time went on I bought issues more frequently before finally deciding to go for it and get a subscription as a birthday present.
For several years I looked forward to getting EGM in the mail, but I noticed a problem. Slowly, features were being removed from the magazine. First the cheats section vanished, with a note saying that it was on the EGM website now. Then, interviews were truncated with messages at the end saying that there were more questions on the website. When the monthly comic strip left as well in 2007 I grew disillusioned with the magazine and opted to take them up on the offer of just finding everything about video games online - except I didn't use their website because I had been a member of a different one since 2003. By the end of 2007, I was no longer a subscriber. Incredibly, EGM went out of business just a few issues later - although it was later brought back.
It's been a long time since I last subscribed to a magazine, but time and technology marches on. The age of magazines is over, and magazine companies are making the move to online - or dying out completely.
Today, the Internet has neutered magazines much the same way it has newspapers. For magazines, the situation is actually worse - even the most frequently published magazines are weekly, while newspapers are daily. This means newspapers are more nimble than magazines when it comes to news. Of course, the Internet obliterates them both in speed and scope.
When I was a kid, I loved magazines. I subscribed to quite a few over the years. Here's a quick look at what I grew up reading.
Your Big Backyard
This was my first magazine. Your Big Backyard is aimed at young kids, and is about animals and nature. My mom correctly guessed that I'd enjoy the subject. I don't remember much about Your Big Backyard since I was so young when I received it.
Ranger Rick
This is the "big kid" version of Your Big Backyard. Once I'd proven my reading ability, I was upgraded to it. I subscribed to Ranger Rick for several years and loved every issue. I remember one night one of my teachers visited my house. She'd been cleaning out her home and had found a whole bunch of Ranger Rick magazines from the late 1980s. They were in great shape, and I eagerly claimed them. The magazines stayed with me for years.
Highlights
1996 was the Year of the Magazine for me. While I had only Ranger Rick before this time, in 1996 I suddenly was subscribed to a half-dozen magazines. I can't recall exactly why my mom enjoyed giving me so many, but I'll guess that it was lots of cheap and fun reading material - and I always loved reading.
Highlights is a classic children's magazine. Memorable for including a wide variety of content, from standalone short stories to modern-day news pieces to the guidance offered by Goofus and Gallant, Highlights was a grab bag of stuff that could vary wildly in terms of catching my interest from issue to issue.
Boys' Life
The only one of my magazines that catered exclusively to my gender was always viewed by me as the most "adult" of the lot. While it was certainly well within my reading level, it talked about some slightly more advanced subjects and included stories about things like the novel Brian's Winter - which is about a boy stranded alone fending for himself.
The two regular sections I recall best are the comics and the section near the back filled with old-school advertisements similar to those from old comic books, where gimmicky toys like x-ray specs are peddled to the kids. I never ordered anything, but I sometimes daydreamed about it.
Disney Adventures
As you might guess, this magazine (which was printed small, like how TV Guide used to be) had a Disney theme, although it talked about other things as well. The first issue I ever got featured Jurassic Park: The Lost World on it. There was a contest inside to win a life-size statue of the famous raptor dinosaurs featured in the series. I entered, and as you probably guessed, lost. I don't know where I would have put a life-size raptor anyway.
As time went on, the comics at the back of the magazine got bigger and bigger, eventually taking over roughly half or more of each issue. I mostly preferred the articles, and lost interest in the magazine as a result.
National Geographic Kids
This one was a little later than the others, I think - I remember getting issues from 1997, not 96. It was mostly about science and nature, as you'd expect from National Geographic. I don't remember too much about it, though.
Nickelodeon Magazine
This was the first of the tidal wave of magazines to show up on my doorstep. My first issue was from October 1995. Nickelodeon Magazine grew to become my favorite of the many magazines I subscribed to. It covered many different topics, had a comics section in the middle, and frequently featured some sort of punch-out gimmick or prank label to have fun with.
The Magazine Extinction
As time went on, I got fewer and fewer magazines. When 1997 rolled around, I elected to drop Highlights and Boys' Life but added National Geographic Kids. Before 1998, my mom came to me one day. She was hard up for money, and told me that to save money she had to cancel my magazine subscriptions. I could keep only one. It was easy to ditch Disney Adventures and National Geographic Kids, but that left two: Nickelodeon Magazine and Ranger Rick. After some thought, I decided it was time to say goodbye to Ranger Rick, leaving me with only Nickelodeon into the next year.
A couple years later I told my mom to cancel Nickelodeon Magazine as well. I don't remember why, but my guess is that I wanted to help save her money and was getting bored with the magazine, so I offered it as a sacrifice.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
In 2003, I was a young teenager with no magazine subscriptions. However, I'd gotten into the habit of buying EGM, a video game magazine, off of the shelf every now and then. First, I bought one in 2000 because it had a news story on a new Pokemon game. Then, in 2001, I got another that talked about Nintendo's new video game system, the Game Boy Advance. As time went on I bought issues more frequently before finally deciding to go for it and get a subscription as a birthday present.
For several years I looked forward to getting EGM in the mail, but I noticed a problem. Slowly, features were being removed from the magazine. First the cheats section vanished, with a note saying that it was on the EGM website now. Then, interviews were truncated with messages at the end saying that there were more questions on the website. When the monthly comic strip left as well in 2007 I grew disillusioned with the magazine and opted to take them up on the offer of just finding everything about video games online - except I didn't use their website because I had been a member of a different one since 2003. By the end of 2007, I was no longer a subscriber. Incredibly, EGM went out of business just a few issues later - although it was later brought back.
It's been a long time since I last subscribed to a magazine, but time and technology marches on. The age of magazines is over, and magazine companies are making the move to online - or dying out completely.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Happy Endings and my Mind's Eye
There are plenty of ways to end a story. Horror stories frequently end poorly, with the looming threat either regrouping in another location or winning outright. Some stories, especially true stories, may end on a sad or downbeat note, such as the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? But the most common type of ending to a story is the happy ending - the ending where everything turns out all right. I've always liked happy endings, and I gravitate towards them when writing. What is it about them that makes me want them?
One important thing about the happy ending is that most or all of the characters get what they deserve. The heroes are rewarded, the villains are jailed, killed, or otherwise dealt with, and there's a bright future ahead. I have always had a strong sense of truth and equality, so it's important to me that justice is served.
And that's another thing - why is it so important that justice be served when the story is fictional? Easy - another one of my reasons for wanting a happy ending is that I tend to get attached to the story's characters. I have a vivid imagination, and when I read a book I see characters interacting in my mind's eye. My imagination will frequently make things interesting by making the characters into other characters I've seen in movies, cartoons, video games, and so on. It will latch on to certain names or details and craft characters around them from other areas of pop culture, no matter how ridiculous the result is. As an example, I once read a book with a character whose last name was Webber. For some reason my mind went on the following path: Webber > webbed feet > ducks > Daffy Duck. The character was then Daffy Duck, no matter how hard I may have wished he wasn't. That is the sort of imagination I deal with when I read.
So anyway, the point of this is that I'm left with a crazy lineup of characters from both my childhood and recent years interacting every time I read a book - some making more sense than others. But this process has not only allowed the characters to come to life in my mind's eye, it also makes them more endearing and interesting. I grow attached to the characters as they interact throughout the book, and if things end badly for them I tend to get a little upset. I may cry, if it was a hard-hitting enough event.
Now, I talk about all this because I have encountered two books in particular that stuck out at me for being interesting, entertaining, and great reads - until the closing chapters, whereupon they twisted into unhappy endings that completely ruined the entire story for me. I'm going to be spoiling both books' endings, so if anyone here happens to be reading these books, don't finish the paragraphs!
The first book was one I read in class for high school, and I no longer remember the name. It was about a large group of dignitaries from all over the world meeting at a single mansion. The mansion was then taken over by terrorists and all the dignitaries (plus a female singer who was there to perform for them) were taken as hostages. Over the course of the book the hostages and terrorists begin to see eye to eye with each other. They form friendships, and when a couple of the terrorists are found to be female, love even begins to blossom. And then... a SWAT team storms the mansion and kills every single one of the terrorists. And I had really been enjoying it, too, hoping that these teenage soldiers who had never known happiness could be turned around, brought back from the brink, and escape or survive the story. But no. Instead, the story ended with the unceremonious killing off of half the cast, taking away all of the most sympathetic characters and with it, my interest.
The second book was found several years ago at a yard sale. Titled Warriors, it's about a middle-aged former fighter pilot getting called back into service for one last war. Along the way he winds up falling in love with a woman around his age. Their romance grows, and the fighting sequences were exciting. But then, halfway though the story, the woman is murdered by the opposing army when a soldier breaks in and shoots her to death while she's taking a bath. The story took a hit here, but I kept reading... until the final battle ends with the dropping of a tactical nuke, killing the main character as well. The story ends with his goofy best friend (who was also recommissioned) being the most important character to have survived the events of the story. Again, the author thought I would still enjoy the book if all of the most interesting and likable characters were slaughtered. And he was wrong. A bad ending can ruin an entire story for me, and so it was with Warriors, which I bitterly shelved after finishing it, never to read it again, my opinion of it forever poisoned by the terrible ending.
Like many people, I read books and watch movies to "escape" into a fantasy world where I can look into the lives of heroes, villains, and everyday folks as they take on challenges and try to come out on top of each other's plans. That is why I like the happy ending - it is cathartic, it is pleasing, it is what I came for. I know the importance of heroes overcoming difficulties and dealing with setbacks, but if they don't triumph in the end it leaves me wondering what the point was.
One important thing about the happy ending is that most or all of the characters get what they deserve. The heroes are rewarded, the villains are jailed, killed, or otherwise dealt with, and there's a bright future ahead. I have always had a strong sense of truth and equality, so it's important to me that justice is served.
And that's another thing - why is it so important that justice be served when the story is fictional? Easy - another one of my reasons for wanting a happy ending is that I tend to get attached to the story's characters. I have a vivid imagination, and when I read a book I see characters interacting in my mind's eye. My imagination will frequently make things interesting by making the characters into other characters I've seen in movies, cartoons, video games, and so on. It will latch on to certain names or details and craft characters around them from other areas of pop culture, no matter how ridiculous the result is. As an example, I once read a book with a character whose last name was Webber. For some reason my mind went on the following path: Webber > webbed feet > ducks > Daffy Duck. The character was then Daffy Duck, no matter how hard I may have wished he wasn't. That is the sort of imagination I deal with when I read.
So anyway, the point of this is that I'm left with a crazy lineup of characters from both my childhood and recent years interacting every time I read a book - some making more sense than others. But this process has not only allowed the characters to come to life in my mind's eye, it also makes them more endearing and interesting. I grow attached to the characters as they interact throughout the book, and if things end badly for them I tend to get a little upset. I may cry, if it was a hard-hitting enough event.
Now, I talk about all this because I have encountered two books in particular that stuck out at me for being interesting, entertaining, and great reads - until the closing chapters, whereupon they twisted into unhappy endings that completely ruined the entire story for me. I'm going to be spoiling both books' endings, so if anyone here happens to be reading these books, don't finish the paragraphs!
The first book was one I read in class for high school, and I no longer remember the name. It was about a large group of dignitaries from all over the world meeting at a single mansion. The mansion was then taken over by terrorists and all the dignitaries (plus a female singer who was there to perform for them) were taken as hostages. Over the course of the book the hostages and terrorists begin to see eye to eye with each other. They form friendships, and when a couple of the terrorists are found to be female, love even begins to blossom. And then... a SWAT team storms the mansion and kills every single one of the terrorists. And I had really been enjoying it, too, hoping that these teenage soldiers who had never known happiness could be turned around, brought back from the brink, and escape or survive the story. But no. Instead, the story ended with the unceremonious killing off of half the cast, taking away all of the most sympathetic characters and with it, my interest.
The second book was found several years ago at a yard sale. Titled Warriors, it's about a middle-aged former fighter pilot getting called back into service for one last war. Along the way he winds up falling in love with a woman around his age. Their romance grows, and the fighting sequences were exciting. But then, halfway though the story, the woman is murdered by the opposing army when a soldier breaks in and shoots her to death while she's taking a bath. The story took a hit here, but I kept reading... until the final battle ends with the dropping of a tactical nuke, killing the main character as well. The story ends with his goofy best friend (who was also recommissioned) being the most important character to have survived the events of the story. Again, the author thought I would still enjoy the book if all of the most interesting and likable characters were slaughtered. And he was wrong. A bad ending can ruin an entire story for me, and so it was with Warriors, which I bitterly shelved after finishing it, never to read it again, my opinion of it forever poisoned by the terrible ending.
Like many people, I read books and watch movies to "escape" into a fantasy world where I can look into the lives of heroes, villains, and everyday folks as they take on challenges and try to come out on top of each other's plans. That is why I like the happy ending - it is cathartic, it is pleasing, it is what I came for. I know the importance of heroes overcoming difficulties and dealing with setbacks, but if they don't triumph in the end it leaves me wondering what the point was.
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