Books
I have three huge bins full of books. All sorts … comic books, coffee table books, Christian self-help books, journals, reference, you name it. I even have a book called How to Read a Book.
Yeah.
Here’s a comment I recently left over at Sarah’s about my growing resentment for this static medium:
Lately I’ve come to realize that paper is pretty much my mortal enemy. I’ve tried and tried, over and over, to listen fairly as people have told me the two main arguments about why books are all that and a bag of chips:
1. Books leave more to the imagination.
2. Books do a much better job of rich, detailed descriptions.To me, those two ideas are completely contradictory. Plus, I have no interest in spending a week reading something that, if put into a richer medium, would only take a couple of hours to get through.
I’ve held on to my books through the years for many reasons … sentiment, interest, the hope of actually reading them, status, laziness … but now I’m considering just getting rid of them all. Maybe on Amazon or eBay, maybe to friends, or maybe with a giant bonfire.
I think I want to go paperless.
December 26th, 2007 at 11:29 am EST
As an English teacher and longtime reader, I completely disagree with you. When you watch a movie instead of reading a book, you miss out on the opportunity to experience a language at work - You don’t see punctuation and intonation, and the way words look on a page. We don’t learn vocabulary by memorizing words from the dictionary; we inherit all of those words from the process of reading.
I love electronic media and film, but getting rid of books just seems like another symptom of a society that is increasingly dependent on easy, quick entertainment that requires less thinking. It will make us lazy, and that’s not something I support. If it’s the actual paper you dislike, maybe Amazon’s new Kindle would give you a new perspective.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:51 pm EST
I too have been finding it harder and harder to read out of books. I just don’t have the TIME, and when I do (like on vacation or a business trip), it always seems that I check out something boring or poorly written from the library only to take it on vacation and be disappointed that I bothered to lug its weight with me. Plus, in the very limited amount of time I have available for reading, I’d rather spend it reading the Bible than some book with somebody’s opinions or interpretations thereof. Its kinda strange though, because at one time I was quite the avid reader…
December 26th, 2007 at 12:52 pm EST
Until the power goes out.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:59 pm EST
Good points, Annie. The actual paper (and accumulating clutter) is something that I dislike, so the Kindle is a good step in the right direction. But, as someone who’s already pretty much mastered punctuation and intonation, it just seems anachronistic to me.
Oh, and don’t worry … I’m not going to get rid of the book I borrowed from you several years ago. We’ll have to get together sometime so I can return it!
December 26th, 2007 at 10:33 pm EST
Bonfires are fun.
Lots of fun.
You can always borrow/rent anyway. If the fancy ever strikes you.
Do you not enjoy conjuring up images and emotions in your head, Lance?
You make valid points, but are those people that say those two things the same people? They say them for different reasons, probably.
I suppose, another thing for me with books - with things like poetry, I know they’re things that are fast disappearing from our world- an artform that’s going out of fashion.
…
December 27th, 2007 at 9:58 am EST
No one can ever master punctuation, intonation, and vocabulary…Language is always changing and adapting. I think you could probably spend your whole life studying literature and still never master all of those things.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:40 am EST
I disagree … mastery is dynamic, not static. It involves not only reaching a certain competency in a trade, but also changing and adapting with that trade. There has to be a point where you can say someone is actually good at something!
I suppose that I could change “mastered” to “reached a point of self-satisfaction with” or “reached terminal velocity with” … but that would just be wordy (and thus, quite ironic).
December 27th, 2007 at 11:50 am EST
I love my books. I like having them so I can go back and read through passages I love, and I have to say that poetry…isn’t the same when read back as when the mind must build a way through it. I like books, they are handy when traveling, a constant companion, and then after awhile you get attached to the books. Thats partially why I keep some books, just the memories of sitting and reading them.
Can you master punctuation and intonation, really? Are there not several types of each, depending on who the writer is, where they come from…
I don’t like that it is really hard to know what books to read, or to buy. I just trust the penguin.
I like to turn pages, I like to write on them, I enjoy the ownership, a small piece of intellectual island, something that I can relate with someone from centuries ago, stories to look back on. Even if our civilization falls apart and we have no electricity, books are still there.
The mind is the one that has to do the desribing. The more the words mean to you (and given the vocabulary of the average movie i.e. i’ve never heard a word i didn’t know in a movie), the richer your experience.
I doubt I will ever drop books, just like I won’t drop music or movies. They are a part of my life.
They are different mediums, and each can do something seperate from what the other can. I will never expect to get something new from a movie every time I watch it. Movies are easy. I like to struggle with books, then come back years later and have an entirely different experience with them.
American History X only changed me once, and I will never forget the sound or the visuals of that movie, things that you don’t have in the same way with books.
If you don’t want your books I have plenty of bookshelf space…
There is the most evident glory of books, which is thought. You can put down thoughts into print, whereas a movie…it often falls short of letting us know what the characters are thinking. You can relate to the emotions through their actions, their movements, the delicacy of human interaction though it be on screen, more easily relate, but always will the relation stop until thoughts can be transmitted.
meh. Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
December 27th, 2007 at 12:06 pm EST
thats what I get for starting a comment at 9 and ending at 11. Darn those Goonies, distract me with witty commentary…
Wait, Lance, if your mastery is dynamic and not static, how do you keep current without reading more? Isn’t your mastery to be defined by what class of books and type of person you are? I mean, you may have the vocabulary that far surpasses some, but what about the way you use it? That defines punctuation, intonation, and vocabulary, for look at the artists of today.
They use words far differently than you or I would, put to rythmns and speech patterns that we don’t think in, but it is partially English. Therefore you would have to be a genius to comprehend all aspects of English, to be able to use them, lest you start putting values on certain levels of speech and comprehension.
But yeah…it all depends on what you call punctuation and intonation.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pm EST
meh.
Maybe what we need is freer formats, ones that don’t confine the storytellers to black and white text, two hour time slots, the big media machine, or current delivery systems. We’re starting to see some interesting things online, but I wonder if consumers are too tied down by convention to make new formats viable. The change, I’d think, would have to come from the storytellers themselves.
For what it’s worth, I’m glad you book lovers are out there. If you want to come and take some of mine, you’re welcome to them! Anything left in a week or two is going to Half Price Books.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:13 pm EST
As for the mastery tangent … I was never claiming to be an expert, I was just pointing out that I’ve already plateaued with my English ability. The reading that I do now has little to do with learning language … it’s about ideas and stories. After a certain point, methinks, real language learning happens more through the dynamics of creativity and experience and less through the consumption of written materials.
Or maybe I’m just lazy.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:22 pm EST
David Y, What is “the penguin”?
Lance, You’ll get more money for your books on Amazon. I’ve been buying my MBA textbooks from obscure websites for cheap, then selling them on Amazon, usually for a profit!
December 28th, 2007 at 12:39 pm EST
Lance,
Please don’t throw out Granda Hammerham’s books! LOVE, MOM
December 29th, 2007 at 2:39 pm EST
“I like to struggle with books, then come back years later and have an entirely different experience with them”
David, I totally agree! That’s my favorite thing about books. I love rereading books almost as much as finding new ones to enjoy. I find that with scripture too. Maybe I read a passage a few years ago and it didn’t make any sense to me at all, but I come back to it and suddenly it totally relates to where I am and then I understand it.
December 29th, 2007 at 5:51 pm EST
DO IT WITH A GIANT BONFIRE!!!
Jus finished reading two GIANT books of Mankiw. This guy is a know-it-all who strings together complicated terms which students have to learn by heart.
In the end its as simple as daily life
Y
December 30th, 2007 at 12:23 pm EST
yer penguin is the publisher penguin. they have the little penguin on the books cover somewhere.
I should point out that I wrote my post before I read the comment above it…
I understand, I’m just in the learning stage with my English, and i don’t want it to ever end…
December 31st, 2007 at 10:41 pm EST
[sigh]
I’m glad that when you have an opinion, Lanceuhlot, you don’t need others to agree with you. Me? Happiness is a book and a nice little fire on a cold evening. Especially a hardback with a good smell. Computers just can’t replicate that. It’s not the language or the info a book contains… it’s an aesthetic experience.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pm EST
Haha I love that, Sarah… I’m coming out of that stage, where I need to convince everyone of one way of thinking. I’m glad I get to experience life as it comes, it would be rather boring if I only had one way of thinking my entire life and couldn’t change.
Actually now that I think about it, I’m not thinking enough. Maybe instead of having you explain your point of view I should ponder it some more before I regurgitate. Yeah…Lance, would it help you to know you are making me think?
mmm. life makes us the most…interesting beings, doesn’t it? like we are constantly being built and destroyed.
Happy New Year!