Reading Habits

[poliphilo]

I used to buy fine editions. Then I couldn't afford them any more.  In the last year or so I've realised I no longer need or hanker after  hard copies. All the books in the world are swarming around in the aether- new ones, old ones, very, very rare ones. Hit a few buttons and there they are at your feet- just as if you were shooting grouse.

I still own lots of books. As Virginia Woolf said (I think it was her) "books do furnish a room".

The last book I read (J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys by Andrew Birkin) was an old paperback that was coming apart at the seams. The one I'm reading at the moment (Sentimental Tommy by J.M. Barrie himself) is an e-text. I don't find any qualitative difference between    curling up with a real book and curling up with my e-reader.  After all, it's the words that matter.

Comments

[sovay]

(Sentimental Tommy by J.M. Barrie himself)

I didn't know that was Barrie's. I read it in installments in my grandmother's Books of Knowledge when I was small; I remember the scene with the schoolmaster Cathro and very little else. I'll have to look it up again.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tommy Sandys is part David Copperfield, part Tom Sawyer, part Zelig. I'm about halfway through, with the sequel- Tommy and Grizel- still to come. It's a book which keeps changing direction and wrong-footing the reader.