The New York Times has a great new blog on school libraries: Do they need books? The commentators are, for the most part, wonderfully thoughtful about the subject, and I was especially impressed by William Powers, who will be publishing a book called “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age.” See his thoughts below, along with the link to the NYT blog.
The Kindle comes in a box with the words “Once upon a time” printed on the side. My own experience with the Kindle confirms what Powers says. Kindle is great for travel and when you carry it around with you, you are never at a loss for reading material. But trying to do anything like the deep read is–at least so far–really impossible. For my course on Childhood and Children’s Literature, I put at the very top of my syllabus the wonderful words of Tim Wynne-Jones about the deep read. I’ve quoted him before on this blog, and I wanted to quote him again, because his words resonate so well with what Powers has to say. I like the idea of considering reading as deep-sea diving–it captures the idea of immersion. But I tend to see reading as less oceanic than aerial, something akin to flying and soaring into a new world–you pass through a portal, get to Elsewhere, and inhabit a world of possibilities, living and breathing the air of the story world.
“The deep-read is when you get gut-hooked and dragged overboard down and down through the maze of print and find, to your amazement, you can breathe down there after all and there’s a whole other world. I’m talking about the kind of reading when you realize that books are indeed interactive. . . . I’m talking about the kind of deep-read where it isn’t just the plot or the characters that matter, but the words and the way they fit together and the meandering evanescent thoughts you think between the lines: the kind of reading where you are fleetingly aware of your own mind at work.”
–Tim Wynne-Jones, “The Survival of the Book”
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/do-school-libraries-need-books/
So it goes with books. What are often considered the weaknesses of the old-fashioned book are in some ways its strengths. For instance, a physical book works with the body and mind in ways that more readily produce the deep-dive experience that is reading at its best. When you read on a two-dimensional screen, your mind spends a lot of energy just navigating, keeping track of where you are on the page and in the text. The tangibility of a traditional book allows the hands and fingers to take over much of the navigational burden: you feel where you are, and this frees up the mind to think.
Moreover, I believe that in a hyper-connected age, the fact that books are not connected to the electronic grid is becoming their greatest asset. They’re a space apart, a private place away from the inbox where we can go to quiet our minds and reflect. Isn’t that the state in which the best kind of learning occurs?
Hmmm, I still think it comes down to personal experience. I’ve owned two Kindles now and been using them for over a year and a half. I also have the application on my iPhone. I agree that reading on my iPhone is not deep reading thanks to the small screen and where I am usually using it.
On the other hand, I find my deep reading is often improved with the Kindle now. I read so many big, thick tomes that the book gets in the way of my reading. They are heavy, my wrists hurt, I have to use both hands so my reading positions are more limited, I can easily lose my place if I am distracted, the book can snap closed and lose my place, some fonts can be harder to read and distracting, older books are dusty and smelly and bother my allergies. For years, I’ve limited my library usage due to dirty, smelly books that could even give me headaches from perfumes or mold. This is never an issue with an ebook reader.
Books almost always require two hands to read. I can use one, two or even none with just a finger to read a Kindle (or other ebook reader).
I can easily put multiple bookmarks in my Kindle books to find passages and important sections. I’ve used book darts in paper books for this, but I tend to use less and mark less since it is more distracting and not as helpful in paper. The Kindle gives some text with the marks making them easier to distinguish.
All this said and I love books. But I adore reading more than the mechanism of receiving the text. I proclaimed for years that no one could take my books from me. Now I tend to choose a Kindle edition over a paper one when I can. It’s portable and doesn’t take much effort to use.
That’s not to say I love the Kindle. My biggest issue with the Kindle is the formatting of some of the books. The editing and formatting can be horrible in some books causing distractions. That’s the fault of the quick and easy selling of the publisher without careful proofing, not the books themselves. But I am finding this is more and more true in paper versions, too. Editing and proofing standards are just nosediving these days, period. Then there are the controversies surrounding marketing, pricing, DRMing, etc. Well, when I’m reading a book and enjoying it, I’m not caring about that stuff. And I’ve formatted so many books for myself that I am happy to read and enjoy.
Yes, some aesthetic choices are gone in ebooks that appear in the design of some paper books, but ebook readers are in their early stages. The design of ebooks will improve but hopefully always leave a choice of font to the user, too.
But I adore just setting the device down, not looking for a bookmark or trying to memorize a page number. Then I pick it up again and start where I left off, usually with one hand that isn’t tired and hurting from carpal tunnel from my computer work. It’s light and easy to read with minimal fuss. And not having to make room on my overcrowded shelves is the final boon. Last year I bought just as many books as ever, but actually had more physical books leave my house than entered it for the first time since I learned how to read. Making room for books is no longer a regular, almost daily chore.
In the end, they are different beasts, but ebook readers are not
Addendum: I do think libraries are necessary and especially children’s books are not ready for ebook formatting since the readers are not conducive to reproducing artwork or illustrations. Most of my reading is text, but picture books and coffee table books with their stunning imagery are best enjoyed in traditional book formats at this stage of the technology.
Excellent points, and that’s why nothing beats a Kindle when it comes to reading on a train, in a hotel room, etc. And I agree, in another decade, the technology will advance in ways that we can’t even imagine now. But when I read from a Kindle I get the eerie feeling that the book is moving into the brain and right back out again. Great at times. Is it just psychological? Do I really retain more when the book is there as a physical object?
I don’t think I agree. Now, I don’t see ebooks as a potential replacement for paper books; as someone argued in a NYT editorial some time ago, the advantage of a paper book is that it is like a hammer: under most conditions, in terms of its form, it is already the ideal tool suited for its purpose, and alternatives are rarely improvements. Nothing beats a simple, basic hammer for pounding in a nail, and nothing beats a paper book for most of the most important purposes of books: for sitting at home reading a book, long-term storage of information, browsing in a library, etc. Now, their are special kinds of hammers for special circumstances, and special kinds of books for special circumstances: ebooks for hotels, audiobooks for the car, etc. Traveling with many texts, reading daily information like newspapers, the ability to do word-searches — the ebook is the best. But these are wonderful additional options — not replacements for a form that is already ideal for most of the purposes the paper books needs to serve.
Some of the arguments made against ebooks sound similar to ones I’ve heard against audiobooks: you don’t get the same deep immersion, you can’t learn from hearing words the same way you can learn by reading them on paper. Hence incidents like a child winning a library’s summer reading club prize being stripped of it because they discovered he’d done much of his “reading” in audio form. And while these arguments aren’t totally baseless, they’re overexaggerated because of the fact that most of the people who make those claims about audiobooks don’t listen to them all that often, comparatively speaking. Maybe the occasional road trip entertainment.
There was a time in my life when I was forced to switch over almost entirely to audiobooks for complicated reasons. Two semesters’ worth of reading I did almost entirely over audio. While at first I thought those arguments about audiobooks being inferior in terms of experience and comprehension were valid, based on my own experience, something happened that changed my opinion. The more I listened, the better I got at it. Listening to books was just another skill, one that I had not developed to the extent that I had developed my print reading skill. And that changed as I practiced more and more. I still wouldn’t say that listening to an audiobook is an *identical* experience to reading it, but it is not necessarily an inferior one. My comprehension, my ability to process, and my ability to remember are not significantly diminished by listening instead of reading, now that I really know *how* to do it well. And as for the deep read experience, to an experienced listener, it may actually be *easier* to become truly immersed in an audiobook. I experienced that dramatically when I listened to the full-cast audio production of His Dark Materials and ended up lying in my bedroom with the lights out while listening to the amazing performances, much more deeply immersed in the world than I had been on my first print reading. I was living in those books and the real world seemed to fade away.
As for the deep read and the ebook, I suspect something similar applies about the need to be practiced and experienced in that form of reading, though it is much more like reading a print book than it is like listening to an audiobook. It always is harder to do the deep read when you are distracted, whether by the book’s form or the world’s outside distractions. If you use the e-book only while traveling, and use it significantly less often than you read from paper books, then yes, I would expect the deep read would be harder. I don’t use my Kindle very often, at least not so far. But when I do, if it’s the right book, I can still sink in, become immersed. It happened most recently with the e-book version of Graceling. And I suspect the more often I use it, the more true it will become — the easier it will be for me to become immersed. I think that in the end, it is the words, whether on the screen, the paper page, or being spoken into your ear, are when will suck us in — provided we can let them in.
Thanks for the tip on His Dark Materials. I’ll try it out. I had a similar experience with the audiobook for Lolita–hearing Jeremy Irons read about the road trip while driving was unbeatable. And you are right about getting accustomed to the new device. Once you are more nimble and practiced with the electronic reader, you can replicate the deep read, though right now it is harder to mark it with a dogear or a pencil.
Thank you for the Lolita tip! Now that I think about it, that would be an amazing book to hear aloud!
I agree, there is nothing like an actual book. They can’t be altered, and they last for centuries, they can be passed on. They can be like a portal to a bygone age, a glimpse of history. In some ways ebooks are useful and convenient, however they can never take the place of actual books. I am reminded of the novel 1984, where news and even history can be rewritten at a whim without warning, telescreens blaring 24/7, and an ever expanding government controlling it all.
a bit off topic but i coined a new word for paper newspapers, i call them snailpapers as term of endearment, not derision.
YOUR BLOG on the paper libe vs e-libe at Room for Debate was among the best blogs reacting to the Time story! Really. I heard this from one of the participants in the discussion, one of the four people writing at the top, before the comments. He/She told me “of all the blogs I have seen this one at tartaw was the best.” Nice
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/021510/opi_563323277.shtml
THE JUNEAU EMPIRE, Juneau Alaska USA
My turn: ‘Snailpapers’ is a term of endearment for our daily newspapers
By Danny Bloom
[freelance snailpaper contributor, unpaid oped]
I want to introduce you today to the word “snailpapers.” What’s a snailpaper, you ask? These are the newspapers we read every day with news that is often 12 hours old by the time it reaches us. Inside, the news is even older.
Maybe you are reading this commentary in a snailpaper right now. Then again, you might be reading it on a screen.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2010/02/reading.html
Fully committing two hands to books can sink us down into that deep-read. The temptation to clutch my Blackberry with that free hand, anticipating the vibration of the next text or call as I read from my Kindle, is what keeps me tethered to the surface. As for my overcrowded shelves, how boring and empty would they become, no longer sagging from the weight of my books, no longer attracting interest and sparking conversation from my guests when my Kindle sits alone in that vast expanse of particleboard.
One publisher’s response to the question of whether we need books and whether we’re seeing the end of publishing as we have known it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weq_sHxghcg (watch the whole video).