carpe decorum

Books are so much more than the text inside. Books have a weight to them, which feel good in your hands or your lap. Computers can't duplicate that, especially with the coldness of plastic/metal compared to the warmth of binding and paper. Books have a great and wonderful variety of smells as well (computers only smell when they're on fire, something I can't recommend from experience). Books are easier to read, and the sound of turning pages is much more soothing than the god awful noises that computers make. As far as taste, well I must confess that I haven't tasted either, though I would assume that both are fairly fowl.

Update: now that I have just tasted both I can vouch that they are fowl.

As far as the textual differences between printed and digital (endlessly linked), if one wants to read about alternative versions of Tolstoy, I would think that writing another version oneself would in the end prove to be more rewarding. Stories are one of the handful of things that can outlast us, and therefore it would seem fit for them to have a permanence. I would hope that after reading War and Peace, someone would be so inspired as to allow their imagination to so wander to the different possiblities inherent in the book on their own and in their own mind, without having to read the different alternates themselves in some digitally linked format.

-Ian

Books are much quieter indeed and bear insult (water, food and the occasional tossing) much more lightly than computers. Still, certain types of research are simpler and less awful tasks when done by computer -- a concordance, dictionary and the like, as Eco points out.

You hit on perhaps the hubris of all ages: our way is the way, surpassing all previous ways, and is unique to boot. And yet the point of computers is the use to which they can be put. They collect stories well enough, although stories are just as wonderful stored in books, or scrolls or rolling off someone's tongue. Another view, expanding on yours is that someone, because computers store information well, will know of Tolstoy who might not have otherwise, read his books, and write their own story in answer to War and Peace. Certainly far more interesting in possibility than the limited set pieces provided by a finite set of endings furnished by hyperlinks.

But then a computer is a tool like any other, and it is best when bent to a purpose for which it is well-suited. On the plus: Information retrieval and storage and replication. On the minus: portability, disposability, durability and readability. So ballots and books do voting and storytelling better by far than contemporary computers (and more tastefully if one likes fowl).

"I would hope that after reading War and Peace, someone would be so inspired as to allow their imagination to so wander to the different possiblities inherent in the book on their own and in their own mind."

You can do far worse than _War & Peace_ fanfiction. Many have, for that matter. Far too much.

---L.

I agree with Larry (as often happens.)

I've noticed that people tend to have some texts that they can tolerate seeing fan-fictionalized, and some that they can't. For example, I don't care who does what with Star Wars characters, but find the idea of sexualized Narnia fanfiction -- which I believe exists -- rather nauseating. And I intend that literally.

What would one call books that one doesn't want to see extended and reimagined -- sacred cowhides?

Yes, there is indeed Narnia slash. You don't want to know. Nor did I, for that matter.

---L.

Since I'm currently writing a book that takes place after the collapse of civilization, I find myself often looking at my computer screen and thinking about how all the information there is lost in the world of said book, but the tomes on the shelves around me will endure there until their pages crumble to dust (admittedly still sooner than one might hope).

But then, I've been looking at my telephone and refrigerator and many other ordinary, stable objects with the same skeptical eye lately, so my frame of reference may be a bit skewed at the moment. :-)

A couple random thoughts:
(1) Does anyone else remember the (annoying) young adult books where you were the main character and made choices that led to different outcomes? Hyperlinks in stories remind me of them.
(2) I find that I appreciate well-done ebooks as much as I appreciate well-done books but what I appreciate about them is somewhat different. Excellent layout, font choice, etc. remain. The sounds and smells aren't there (but having accidentally caught a book on fire that I was once reading, I can't say a burning book smells much better than a burning computer). Ebooks offer some conveniences that dead-tree books don't (linked indexes, easier ways of writing neat margin notes, etc.).
(3) My organization of information project calls, but something should also be said about content of a document v. the work v. the content's packaging...if I come up with what I'm trying to say, I'll be back.

I remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books fondly. I think they're one of the reasons the web made so much sense to many of us.

I do remember being disappointed in the books, though. What I read for at the time was to be transported elsewhere; I imagined Choose Your Own Adventure books would one up this by transporting me _and_ letting me make decisions and influence events once I was elsewhere. But they weren't as good at the transporting part as other novels (perhaps because they were badly written :->), so I merely got the making-decisions part, in a sort of letdown isolation.

Which maybe is the challenge one still faces, if one wants to create a successful hyperlinked book now.

Research, of course, requires no such transporting, and hyperlinked research, when it works, is a delight.

[perks up ears] A new book? Tell us about it.