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Reading on paper or screen

scotrace

Head Bartender
Staff member
Messages
14,373
Location
Small Town Ohio, USA
I'm happy to be able to grab some works in digital form, mostly free (out of copyright). Now I have a full collection of Whitman's works, and U.S. Grant's autobiography, and some Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse. I grabbed a copy of Last of the Mohicans to finally read. All in my iBooks collection. But I still find I just don't stick with it. It works for poetry, because you go there and read bits. But digital works don't hold my attention. I forget I'm reading a digital book, maybe because it is an app, rather than a book?
I've recently finished an Eisenhower bio and The Fault in Our Stars, and am slogging through some of Deitrich Bonhoffer's works and a Dorothy Parker bio (excellent), on paper. Paper books, I read right through. Unless it's Kerouac. Paper or digital, On The Road's fame is a mystery.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
Grant's autobiography is extraordinary. Exceptionally well written by a man who staved his soul on Lucifer's pike
and wrote with a troubled conscience while Death tugged at his sleeve.

Oscar Wilde's The Artist As Critic features a critique of Whitman titled The Gospel According to Walt Whitman,
which glimpses Wildean envy similar to that of his Elizabeth Barrtett Browning comment in English Poetesses.

Edith Wharton's introduction to Ethan Frome should be required grammar school reading.

Kerouac, agreed. His iconic stature, like Burroughs, is tenuous at best; though the Beats have some rhyme if not reason.
 

Matt Crunk

One Too Many
Messages
1,029
Location
Muscle Shoals, Alabama
My wife has a Kindle tablet and enjoys reading that way, but not me. I read a lot online every day, but not when it comes to books. I have to sit down with a printed book in hand to enjoy it. A couple of times when I've downloaded public domain classics for free, I had to print them out to read them. Just couldn't enjoy them any other way.
 
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Retro Spectator

Practically Family
Messages
824
Location
Connecticut
I personally hate everything being digital. Sure it might seem convenient, but it really isn't. Electronics need electricity, in the form of a battery, or a plug. Paper needs nothing. Computers can get infected with malware. Books cannot be infected. Books cannot break, unless torn or hacked up. Books are cheaper. Books are superior.
 

Feraud

Bartender
Messages
17,190
Location
Hardlucksville, NY
My 20 year old is on summer break from classes.
Last week he comes home with an arm full of books. Real books, not the digital fluff.. ;)
I'd say he's in the "reading on paper" camp.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
"...her art's immortality is life's disintegration...there is a peculiar, haunting challenge.."
Robert Lowell, Foreward to Ariel


Revisiting Ariel this morning; Sylvia Plath vaguely recalls the character of Eustacia Vye from Hardy's The Return of The Native.:coffee:
 

MJCR

One of the Regulars
Messages
174
Location
Lancashire, UK.
I work in publishing so eReaders are great for manuscripts etc. As a one-time (long-time) bookseller, I must confess I do prefer the physical book but have quite happily adapted to reading in either format.
 

Bushman

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,138
Location
Joliet
I prefer reading a book or magazine in physical format. Something about the smell of a book really gets to me. However, I do not abstain from electronic reading.
 

Dan Allen

A-List Customer
Messages
395
Location
Oklahoma
I never read digital if at all possible. It is just not the same, and besides after a page or two my eyes seem to go in strike.
I have just finished " Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest " by Wade Davis. The book, about the first English expeditions to Everest was so heavily laced with WWI history that I ended up having several of my history books beside me for reference while reading. I cannot imagine that being a convenient option without having more than one digital reader
 

WesternHatWearer

A-List Customer
Messages
366
Location
Georgia
Paper, Paper, Paper and did I mention the paper. I have found I do not retain information as well if I attempt to study using a screen. For me having a tangible object to read, make notes on and so forth allows me to better connect with the material.
 

GHT

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,279
Location
New Forest
My wife is a prolific reader, both books and electronic. I detest electronic books, but, if a kindle encourages a youngster to become a regular reader, then I'm all for that. We know a good many younger people that have worked 'backwards' in their music purchase and appreciation. From downloads to CD's and onto vinyl, no reason why the same can't happen with the written word.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
24,736
Location
London, UK
My wife is a prolific reader, both books and electronic. I detest electronic books, but, if a kindle encourages a youngster to become a regular reader, then I'm all for that. We know a good many younger people that have worked 'backwards' in their music purchase and appreciation. From downloads to CD's and onto vinyl, no reason why the same can't happen with the written word.

Exactly. And hey, as I'm sure we've all said before.... if they're reading quality literature, does itg matter that it's in electronic form? (And, conversely, what value tripe like Fifty Shades if it's on paper?).
 

GHT

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,279
Location
New Forest
Well, when civilization falls and we run out of toilet paper, all those copies of Fifty Shades are bound to come in handy. You can't do *that* with a Kindle.
My Godson, a twenty-eight-year-old, is not exactly a bookworm, but since he has had a Kindle his appetite for reading has known no bounds. I text him telling him about this thread. He looked it up and text back: “They are simply confusing the plate for the food,” he opined. Now if that was an original thought, I am impressed.
 

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