Friday, 10 August 2012

E-books and Tree Books

I'm really pleased that a piece I wrote for Creatabot is attracting comments.  It's all about e-books, digital technology and issues around permanence/impermanence.  A subject that fascinates me.

Yesterday, I came across the website of a publisher in Canada called BeWrite Books.http://www.bewrite.net/.  They refer to printed books as "treebooks" which I think is a really lovely expression.

Anyway, if you want to read my piece here's an extract....

In a previous post I quoted author Jonathan Franzen, and do so again as his views are thought provoking. Regarded as one of America’s greatest living novelists, he is not a fan of the ebook.
“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it’s pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now. I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’t change.”
When I first read this quote I immediately thought, what a strange thing to say.  An ebook is forever.  Once it’s out there, it’s there until the writer takes it down.  A printed book only exists while it is in print.  And paper and ink can rot, burn, fade and be physically destroyed. Therefore lost in that way.
Then I thought some more about permanence/impermanence.........


Article in full on http://creatabot.co.uk/2012/08/09/an-ebook-is-for-life-by-jane-ayres/


CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) By alienratt

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