Just the other day, I stopped at an intersection: there are usually destitute people at this corner. They wander into traffic with handmade signs that say things like "No work. Need food for children." But on this day, I saw a young man carrying a sign that said "Border's liquidation sale. 20 to 40 percent off."
It's strange to be a writer these days, when the entire medium seems to be wavering mirage-like before our eyes and under our hands. Once upon a time, I couldn't have imagined anything more certain than the act of writing. Scratched on the side of a cave wall or inked on a piece of papyrus, writing is an act of both mind and body. Like making war and love and food, like all of our most fundamental acts.
Apparently, everything changes.
I knew the first Borders-a gorgeous shop of polished wood near the University of Michigan campus. They hosted some of my first readings: they served mint tea and baklava; they brought in crowds.
There were no other Borders back then, and maybe it seems incongruous to mourn what eventually became a giant franchise, but still, I do.
Borders was one of the few places where I could actually get some work done. Quiet and spacious, they had nice tables near windows. Jeffrey, the manager, might be around to say hi and chat about our writing projects. Tammy in the café made a beautiful latte with a velvety layer of steamed milk.
One of my other favorite places to work in Miami is the lovely independent store, Books & Books. I hope that the Borders customers will come to them and to our other independents. But for me it's impossible not to feel the loss, a sense of cultural diminishment. If this country must be ruled by corporations and chain stories, this one, at least, sold books.
I don't know if e-readers are the main culprit behind Borders' downfall, but they couldn't have helped. I still write my books by hand-yes, long-hand, with pen and paper. And I like to read 'by hand' as well. I often have to read student work on computers, but I much prefer physical contact with the printed page. Oh, I can practically hear my students rolling their eyes as I write this, but I thank heaven that a page of paper is not a screen.
Everything changes, sure. But as newspapers, magazines, books, and bookstores flatten into screens and more screens, I'm not convinced that all change is for the better. Border's children section was one of our toddler's favorite cool retreats during the sweltering Miami summer. No more. I suppose she won't mind too much: now she can stay home and play on the computer.
Elana Estrin: Q&A With Nicole Krauss, Author of Great House and The History of Love
Jeffrey Small: Tough Lessons From a Debut Novelist
Seth Abramson: September 2011 Contemporary Poetry Reviews
Larry Atkins: Borders Closings Are Another Step Towards Community Isolation
I was bemused by Ms. Abu-Jaber's comment in the final paragraph that her daughter could only enjoy books in the books section of Borders and only had access to a computer at home. So does that mean that Ms. Abu-Jaber never bought any of those Borders books? So perhaps she and people like her were the CULPRITS and not e-books.
You can sit on it. You can put it down on a table, open the page you were reading a few days later and it'll be exactly as you left it. You never have to be concerned about plugging a book into an outlet or having its batter life die. And if you lose it, you've just lost one book, and not hundreds or thousands all stored on one device. The experience of reading tends to be better with a book too. Words stamped on a page in black ink are easier to read than words formed of pixels on a backlit screen. You can read dozens or hundreds of printed pages without suffering the eye fatigue that often results even from a brief stretch of reading a screen. You can flip through real pages more quickly and flexibly than you can through virtual pages. When you're finished with a book, you can use it to fill an empty space on your bookshelf, donate it to a library or lend it to a friend.
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Pulitzer prize book "The Shallows: What the internet is doing to our brains" - nominated for nonfiction 2010. Should have won. Probably the most important nonfiction work of the past decade regarding the internet, books, new technology and how all of it is rewiring our brains.
E-reader screens are not backlit. I have yet to have eye fatigue from reading on an e-ink reader. It is no harder on eyes than a piece of paper.
Messybush, you can only intelligently discuss e-readers if you have even the faintest idea how they work.
Can you automatically arrange your bookshelves alphabetically? Then immediately RE-arrange it by author? Can you carry hundreds of books along with you when you travel? Can you download that book you want in the middle of the night when you have insomnia? Save the gas from driving across town and spending half an hour looking for a parking place?
I thought not.
You want to fill those spaces on your bookself, have at it. They're not going to stop printing books any time soon, but if you are going to knock e-readers at least learn enough about them to know what you're talking about.
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A page of online text viewed through a device or on a screen may seem similar to a page of printed text. But scrolling or clicking through a document involves physical actions and sensory stimuli very different from those involved in holding and turning the pages of a book or a magazine. Research has shown that the cognitive act of reading draws not just on our sense of sight but also on our sense of touch. It's tactile as well as visual. "All reading," writes Anne Mangen, a Norwegian literary studies professor, is "multi-sensory." There's "a crucial link" between "the sensory-motor experience of the materiality" of a written work and "the cognitive processing of the text content." The shift from paper to screen doesn't just change the way we navigate a piece of writing. It also influences the degree of attention we devote to it and the depth of our immersion in it.
As a device for reading the book contains some compelling advantages over computers. You can take a book to the beach and not have to worry about getting sand in its works. You can take it to bed without worrying about it falling onto the floor if you fall asleep. You can spill coffee on it.
Have you EVER even picked one up? Tried one out?
No, I thought not.
I can buy all kinds of books I want, probably even that book of yours you're hyping.
If I don't drop my Kindle once a week, I think it feels unloved. The cats walk across it, I bathe with it, I've sleep on it... Now, I've slept on print books and damaged them.
Nice piece, Diana. Sorry that a few comments above fail to take into account the parts of publishing they don't have to see.
I didn't like them before Borders closed (way before -- always preferred Borders way of meeting the customer) and I don't like them now.
Meh.
BZ.
Another sweet thing about this article was how it made me reminice a feeling my store had that so many of my peeps talked about, and I felt.
Hey and it made me think of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan famously emailing by AoL dial up, while his big store takes over her little store. (Can not think of name for the life of me) But I am sure everyone has seen it.
So, while I understood much of what Ms.Abu-Jaber is saying, as someone with a Kindle and who reads and reviews ebooks, I have little patience after spending more than your average person on print books -- even with the reader -- to read once again a piece that would like me to feel quilty over the format I prefer, and the format that some people cannot do without.
Culprit: (klprt)
n.
1. One charged with an offense or crime.
2. One guilty of a fault or crime.
Really?
I'm sure you don't want anyone to buy your books on one of those devices -- and they do look to be available in that format -- it would be criminal. :)
Hey, seriously, I respect your preferences, how about you don't slam readers for *their* preferences or, in the cases of people with vision issues, needs? Having an e-reader is not a crime; it's a way for readers to obtain books, including yours.