The new bibliomaniacs

I find that this helps remember books that I read years ago, and usually the single quote is enough to jolt a series of memories about the book.

That said, I also own physical books and they are in glass bookshelves around my office and living room. I do like the looks of them and they can be a conversation starter as well when friends come over.

I have a similar feeling when it comes to my music collection, some of which includes rare recordings. I ripped everything and have it at my fingertips on my phone, computer, etc, but I often find that I’ve forgotten when I have. When I was younger, I kept it all on a shelf. Browsing one’s music collection (or a friend’s) was always a pleasant way to spend an evening socializing. With apps, that is all gone. I have recurring fantasies about building some kind of physical music player, with cartridges that one could insert into a “player”. The actual music would be stored centrally, but this would be more like a mnemonic device to make browsing more enjoyable. I could imagine a similar thing for ebooks.

This agrees with studies that show that memory retention is better among students when using physical books rather than ebooks. That's because we're embodied. The book is a physical object with physical features. These intelligible physical features create associations (spatial anchoring, sensory engagement) that reinforce memory. You also get a sense of progress as you read. For instance, when I read something, I better remember at what depth certain content is, and given the depth, I know more or less what is in that part of the book. You could think of it in terms of spatial indexing or in terms of data locality.

People think the medium doesn't matter. They think that it's just a matter of encoding. But the medium very much matters, because the senses are involved in memory formation in all sorts of ways. It's also why handwriting leads to better retention of information than typing.

In ten days, I’ve read J.-K. Huysmans’s Durtal tetralogy, Nancy Maguire’s An Infinity of Little Hours, Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, and I’ll finish Bernanos’s Diary of a Country Priest this evening. I don’t think I’ve ever read at this pace with physical books. There’s something about being able to pull out the X4 rather than my phone wherever I am that has really made a difference for me, and the tiny screen allows me to find my place immediately and dive back in. Even when I carry around physical books, I don’t always carry them in places with me, forget them in the car, etc.

This only works for a certain kind of reading—mainly novels. But it has been a remarkable development for me. I don’t think I’m a convert away from physical books, but my wife appreciates that I can now put novels on there rather than trying to find more space in our house for books!

It's probably a bad example but I don't have any physical connection with music or video anymore for instance, but I definitely remember having that kind of relationship with favorite records and tapes when I was a kid. And now I just... don't. It must be the same way for some people with e-books.

My phrase for this is "Books are bookmarks".

Even unread books form a physical reminder to read, and of the import of the topic they cover.

When I come across a book that covers something important well, I buy it. I will likely read it, but even if it just keeps reminding me of the topic, reinforcing my integrated web of understanding, it is doing good.

- can't be read in dark mode

- can't change font or font size (or line/paragraph spacing)

- can't use search

- can't be in multiple places (multiple devices)... uh, easily

- etc

I think you just have embrace the positives of whichever you choose.

Most of the same kids still scroll instagram, listen on spotify and etc. At least that’s what I’m seeing around me.

Otherwise, I agree.

I can name two:

1) Chemical Engineering 2) Classics

In both cases the physical book may be the only place to find certain kinds of valuable info.

In the case of Chem E, I was told this by my father, also a Chem E, who said that some of these old books contained values and tests that were found nowhere else. And while a lot of that is available in modern form, not all of it is.

In the case of classics, I'm cribbing from David Butterfield here, who has a great book tour on YouTube where expands on this at length (4+ hours).

In the 18th and 19th century the level of education was higher and there were simply more people around who were working at the highest level in the field. Their speculations were written down in physical books and nowhere else. Many of these were valuable and showed new insights you won't find elsewhere else, especially for professionals in the field.

Here's an example. The copies that we have of, say, Homer, are copies of copies. Pretend for a moment that Homer actually wrote in English. We can imagine a line in the "original" (a copy of a copy), that says:

He of the stout quarrel chest said:

It kinda works - stout men quarrel, I guess. But you know what would work even better? He of the stout barrel chest. You can make a case that this was an instance of bad copying and should be corrected in editions going forward, especially if you can cite additional evidence.

Multiple this by the Greek & Roman corpus and all the possible permutations and you have a good reason to turn to those books that earlier writers thought very deeply about.

So the reading device can be put in unmaintained mode any time by the company who sells it. That sucks. Same goes for the corresponding software, although in this case I have more flexibility sometimes (i.e., I can install some open source software... but that's a hassle in itself). As per the actual digital book, don't get me started with DRM. One can pirate books, though, but then some people have ethical considerations.

I typically buy second-hand books. It's the best deal for me because I don't have the feeling to be super protective with them, and they are very cheap.

I read a lot, was really into ebooks and now mostly buy paper books. The inverse of the cost point iis a big reason, cost of ebooks is much more than paper books in a lot of cases because there is no second hand ebook market.

Environmentally I think it's complicated- an ebook is certainly better, but an ebook reader itself is much worse for the environment than many books. I can't claim any moral high ground since I have both.

That said, there are clear advantages to books. You can't page through an ebook nearly as well as a physical reference book. That's admittedly somewhat balanced by the existence of search. Physical books can also pay much more attention to the aesthetics of print and layout. Eink readers and epub/mobi/az3 formats are atrocious for this, whereas iPads with PDFs are somewhat better. There's still works that can't be captured in those formats though, like pop-up books, raised/embossed/textured printing (which I've seen used in poetry), or illuminated works. And books don't need power.