My parents were not great readers, Mum less so that Dad but there were a couple of shelves of books in the house and some more children's books scattered around given as Xmas/birthday presents.
I am an avid reader and have been since I was (say) eight, the public library was my friend. When I went to boarding school books and the school library were my saviour against the emotional rigours of such a place for a child.
Consequently, when I grew up, married, bought a home and had children I had a broad collection of books on a couple of bookcases and as our children developed they took an interest in these books. They learned the joy of reading, of exploring knowledge, of being able to dip into a broad variety of books from complex fiction to history to nature to geography - not to mention some stuff my 15 year old niece found which we forgot was not out of *her* reach :)
Nowadays, I suspect, so many people read books in electronic format that they do not build small libraries of the type I/we had and thus their children will never explore in the way mine did. I think this is a bad thing.
I know the internet is a wealth of, variable although often dubious, knowledge but sitting quietly reading a book beats the hell out of a computer screen and wandering through a library beats the hell out of the internet.
A Brave New World? I'm not so sure....
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"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken"
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I was never much of a reader but had heaps of books around the house for the family. When I sold up and went full time on the road I couldn't keep them due to space and weight so got a eReader, that was great as I started reading as I had the time. It went to the eReader gods so now have a few books on my phone and find that great as well. When they are finished I will repace with more.
Oh! The books I had at home went to the local Palative Care Team to do what they wanted.
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Wife has a Kindle but hardly uses it. Prefers a hard copy book. I dont like it at all but I do like a couple of car magazines that I read on my iPad. Perusing Wikipedia can get addictive for me chasing links. After a few links I often forget what I went there for in the first place.
I turfed out a set of 1960s Encyclopaedia Britannica about 10 years ago. Even the op shops didnt want them. Took two cycles of the recycle bin because of the weight.
A great aunt of mine used own all the shops on Bakery Hill in Ballarat (McDonalds etc). She actually ran a private library from one shop. When she retired and sold all the shops, we ended up with the entire contents of the library in a spare room in our house. They eventually went to the Scouts as part of their waste paper collecting. Remember tying all your old newspapers and cereal boxes with jute string for the Scouts?
Mike I do agree with you. I enjoy my home library and love to relax with a good book as I often do. I prefer it over the internet any day. Sadly the day came when so many book shops were forced to close down due to modern technology. I hope Crow Books in Victoria Park with its good old fashioned service has a long life ahead. Happy reading Mike :) ......Kisha.
Mike you are going full time on the road, how will you take your library with you? I have about 100 books on my Kindle, takes no space and weighs little.
Unfortunately technology makes things obsolete very quickly. Luckily there are those that embrace the older technologies.
Take old Vinyl records which have been hanging on for a while, and now getting a new lease on life with Audio aficionados. Some bands still releasing on vinyl.
8 Track to Cassettes, then CD's and now streaming and digital purchases. Now a USB stick for the car audio systems. Still aficionados of the old systems and I suspect physical forms of music will be around for a long time to come.
Nothing quite like handling a book though and being able to turn the physical pages. Most of my books have gone to family members since I decided to go travelling. I still have some twenty favourites on board though. I do read E'Books on my tablet though. Have many thousands on there so I somehow don't think I will ever read them all.
My all time favourite book is a coffee table book of B&W photos of the old twenties and thirties "J" Class America's Cup sailing boats published by an English company called Beken of Cowes. Nothing quite like reading a book like that and seeing the great plates of the Yachts .
So Tactile. Digital doesn't have a patch on an actual Book.
-- Edited by Yuglamron on Wednesday 17th of October 2018 09:53:22 PM
Although a GPS can get you around, there is nothing like a big A3 sized road atlas to get the big picture. Bought a new one last year. Same for instruction manuals. Many purchases have their manual on-line (in 10 different languages). I still print out the important bits. Today I bought a new dishwasher. All the instructions were on a double sided page of A4. I printed that double sided page out. The other 30 or so pages were all disclaimers and installation instructions which I saved the English bit to my computer.
I had all my school books from yr11 thru a 4yr science degree that I kept for reference. Use the internet for that and more these days. About 16 years ago I put all the school books in boxes and sealed the boxes. Then when we shifted houses 8 years ago any box that was not opened when in the recycle bin. They all went in. Too many reference books are out of date and the internet is easier to use.
I love my Kindle, it comes everywhere with me. Rather than limiting what people find to read I think the internet and electronic books can open people up to books that they would never have found or thought to look for in a normal small library. Travelling thought the Kimberley I saw several references to the Durack family, a bit of googling led me to Mary Durack and her books and so while still in that area I was able to start reading about the early days of colonial settlement there. In Mataranka saw a reference to We of the Never Never, so downloaded and read it, a book that has not been in actual print for quite a while but is available online. Many other times I have been curious about something and have done some online searching which has led me to online books, both fiction and reference, things I doubt I would ever have got to a library to look for.
G'day. I always travel with paper books. Love reading them. A friend of mine lent me his kindle for a while. It did not seem right to me. I have found so many places now have a swap area and I use them. If there are no books to my liking I then wait until the next place. I limit my books to no more than 10 so all is good for me. Cheers.
-- Edited by ballast2 on Wednesday 17th of October 2018 11:49:01 PM
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Jack Cherie and the memory of the four legged kids.
I love the variety of printed books and the chance to swap them in cp laundries with like minded readers. However you cant go past being able to make the font size bigger on your ebook to allow for the eye sight changes that come as you get older.
-- Edited by Traway on Thursday 18th of October 2018 08:36:52 AM
I love the variety of printed books and the chance to swap them in cp laundries with like minded readers. However you cant go past being able to make the font size bigger on your ebook to allow for the eye sight changes that come as you get older.
-- Edited by Traway on Thursday 18th of October 2018 08:36:52 AM
So true Traway, I am suffering deterioating eysight due to almost 50 years with type 1 Diabetes.
She is an avid book worm, and the books whilst on the internet are still costing us many $$$$.
She has had heaps of free ones.
Whilst I have a Ereader, I very rarely use it.
so much so that I have to go back and re read to get the theme of the book.
I find many other things to do, with the Code Breaker Cross words my favourites. I have done 100's of them. Even the clueless one I can knock off in around 10 to 15 min.
Anyone out there want to share a internet link to free books.
I can remember as most will that you use to have to buy the encyclopedia Britannia whether you could afford them or not. if you didn't you where depriving your kids of a education just about every house had a set plus yearly updates. you couldn't give them away now
Mike you are going full time on the road, how will you take your library with you? I have about 100 books on my Kindle, takes no space and weighs little.
Sadly Ian I'll not be able to take them but I was delighted when, some time back, I informed my younger son of my nomadic plans and he quickly said "Can I have your books and tools?" :)
However there are some hardcopy books I shall take: All ten of the "Bushcraft" books by Ron Edwards The Concise Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford Style Manual [writing style] The Don Camillo Omnibus Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson Penguin Dictionary of Quotations Poetry of Robert Frost
And, no doubt, a few others.
For the Kindle I have more books than I can count so I don't think I'll ever run out of reading material.
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"I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken"
Oliver Cromwell, 3rd August 1650 - in a letter to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland
