[lit-ideas] Re: The value of books
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2018 06:56:06 -0700
This is probably not quite on subject, but I've become acclimated to Kindle --
to some extent out of necessity. I find the print of the books on my shelves
too small to read without eye strain; whereas Kindle lets me change the font,
font size and darkness. It also lets me change the color of the background.
I've been putting this to the test by reading a mystery-writer I am fond of, J.
A. Jance, one novel after the other on Kindle to see if I'll eventually get
eye-strain, but after 30 books, I haven't.
I suspect I'm a little ahead of the anticipated curve of more people reading
ebooks rather than hard copies because I was for a while planning to move to
Idaho and contending with my son's complaint that I should get rid of a lot of
books since he hated to move so many boxes of book.
The move to Idaho has been abandoned at least for now, but I am reading almost
nothing but ebooks nowadays. One problem I had a while back was reading an
author everyone here objected to, something to do with genetics and our
evolutionary history, and finding that I couldn't copy the text I wished to
refer to into an email I wanted to post; so I had to open two windows and type
the text into the email. But in playing with text in my J.A. Jance marathon I
have learned how to copy text; so the next serious book I read I expect I'll
once again inundate Lit-Ideas with four-post-days now and again. :-)
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On ;
Behalf Of epostboxx@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2018 11:54 PM
To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] The value of books
On 31. Jul 2018, at 06:59, david ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A pub gave [a book about Hereward the Wake] to me; books are now either so
devalued or the sense of community is so strong that free book tables are
everywhere in Britain: leave a book, pick a new one. Or choose a book and
put some money in the box.
I have come across several of these book-sharing schemes, from simple
take-a-book/leave-a-book shelves and tables in supermarkets and other
commercial or public spaces to rather complex schemes where one can apparently
trace the readership/travels of a book. (I have up to now not participated in
any of these more complex schemes.) Here in Germany in certain neighbourhoods
one often comes across boxes (adorned with the label ‘Zu Verschenken’ [to give
away])of books on a yard wall or the sidewalk.
Among photos sent us by friends visiting New Zealand in January was a picture
of a small hut-like construction with a large openable glass window displaying
a couple of shelves of books at a campground. Prominent on the front of the
‘hut' was the sign ‘The Muriwai Little Library”.
A little Internet research led me to the 'Little Free Library’ home page:
https://littlefreelibrary.org ;
A thirty second video explains the principle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=KIwh6TzYc70
I suppose this represents the ‘devaluing’ of books in the sense that they are
deemed by their purchasers not worth the investment of time and energy required
to lug them around to second-hand stores. This may have as much to do with the
affluence of the book owner as the value of the book — or at least give
evidence of an owner-affluence/book-value relationship.
A related scheme here in Kiel is a series of second-hand bookshops that rely on
donations of books which are then sold ‘at market value’ (i.e., prices
comparable to commercially-run second-hand shops — something easily determined
thanks to the Internet). This income is used to provide employment for
‘psychologically handicapped’ people [ Menschen mit psychischer Behinderung’].
Here the notion of the ‘value’ of used books takes on an added dimension.
Chris Bruce,
who as an avid and prolific reader
‘profits’ from several of the above-
mentioned schemes, in
Kiel, Germany
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest
on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
