Your latest book purchases.

[Cybele]

I agree, I just can't physically read a book off a computer screen. Until they invent a reader that is as versatile and user friendly and portable as a paperback forget it. Plus you can read a book in the bath.

I've read e-books on a computer screen, on a Palm Pilot, on an iPod (and read text on a friend's iPad) and on a Kindle. The Kindle screen looks like paper and "feels" like paper on the eyeballs. (There's no screen glare.) It's the size of a medium-sized paperback. It has loooooong battery life. (It's almost always at least two weeks between chargings.)

You can read a book on your Kindle in the bathtub -- you just have to be very careful!

However, *books do smell better*!

[Raphael]

I'm with Saturn- reading on a screen just isn't the same- I love 1800's books- the crackly pages and the smell.

[Elison]

The lastest book I bought is The age of innocence by E.Wharton (Penguin series)

[Raphael]

Welcome to the forum Elison. Had a look at the synopsis online- looks a good read.

[MrsRsCat]

I've just bought Posthumous Keats by Plumly, Young Romantics by Daisy Hay and A Genius for Failure by Paul O'Keefe (about Haydon whose house in Lisson Grove I passed regularly on the bus last year). They have all been sent to my daughter who will be bringing them out in her suitcase on the 21st. Hooray.

[Cybele]

You'll like the Plumly!
I've downloaded a sample of the "A Genius for Failure" & "The Young Romantics" to my Kindle. (But oh my! Twenty bucks is a lot to pay for an ebook!)

[MrsRsCat]

The Plumly arrived in London yesterday. My daughters phoned to say ooooh a parcel has arrived can we open it. I laughed to hear their glum reaction that it was Just another of those boring fat Keats books. Oh dear.
Twenty bucks does sound a lot but I'm afraid ebooks is the way the world seems to be going. It also avoids embarrassing one's daughters with their mother's sad geeky books.

[BrokenLyre]

Well MrsRsCat, welcome to this site and thanks for sharing your experience with your daughters. You are NOT alone! I get the same reaction from my kids when they realize the exciting package is just "another Keats book." Some groans follow. Then they'll say, "How many books do you now have?" Sometimes they smile awkwardly and seem embarrassed for me as if they are thinking that I am one step from the psych ward... If I do enter the ward, I hope they let me take my books.

Nice to know we're not alone.

[Saturn]

This young generation must be the first generation to grow up in a world in which a book is not just something made from paper and card and glue, they can't understand something which doesn't need to be charged, doesn't make any sound or can't be deleted with a click or a swipe and doesn't connect to the internet.
I feel sorry for kids growing up today, the technological world feels too much, an information overload, precious little of which is useful, or inspiring or creative. I love my gadgets myself, have computers and a mobile phone and lots of things but I can live without them, they don't own me, and I can pick up a book and be with "Achilles shouting in the Trenches, or with Theocritus in the Vales of Sicily..." without a problem, I can switch off; theirs is a world dominated by and ruled by all these technological wonders and they can never escape them because they don't know anything else. It's quite sad actually.

[Cybele]

The Plumly arrived in London yesterday. My daughters phoned to say ooooh a parcel has arrived can we open it. I laughed to hear their glum reaction that it was Just another of those boring fat Keats books. Oh dear.
Twenty bucks does sound a lot but I'm afraid ebooks is the way the world seems to be going. It also avoids embarrassing one's daughters with their mother's sad geeky books.

Oh, but what's a mother for, if not to embarrass her kids?
(One of my kids is so embarrassed about my obsession, she never told me that one of her friends is an academic whose specialty is Romantic era English lit, with his own Keats obsession. She was afraid I'd talk to him.)

[Cybele]

This young generation must be the first generation to grow up in a world in which a book is not just something made from paper and card and glue, they can't understand something which doesn't need to be charged, doesn't make any sound or can't be deleted with a click or a swipe and doesn't connect to the internet.

I hope paper books never go away! I love my Kindle, and I love the portability it gives some of my favorite books, but I love my physical books, too. (I have digital + paper versions of some of my favorites.) The mere presence of my favorite paper books is kind of comforting to me -- like hanging out with old friends, or something. Also, if everything is digital, we risk losing lots of things when the medium they're on becomes obsolete.

One thing that makes me sad about the ubiquitous nature of computers is that, in the future, we're unlikely to see first drafts of works of poetry or fiction or anything because most people now use a keyboard rather than a pen or pencil. (I was appalled to learn that some school districts in this country no longer require the teaching of penmanship/cursive.)

[MrsRsCat]

Hallo everyone, thanks for the welcome and thank goodness I am not alone. I chuckled out loud (is that a COL?) when I read your post, Cybele, about about your kids keeping your "obsession" quiet.

But wait, there's more to my tale - my eldest told me - in that same parcel conversation - that her company is sending her to Rome for a week next month ... "Sooooo" I say in as off-handed a way as possible, "will you be getting any free time?.....to see the sights ... you know, the Colosseum, the Forum, the art galleries ..... the KEATS museum...." (you see how nonchalant I was, leaving this to the last).
"Not another. What's he doing in Rome as well?"
In desperation I threw in that I have read there are a lot of cats in the Protestant Cemetery. They like cats.
I have hopes that out of sheer pity she make take the bite. And who knows, even acquire the obsession?
In my children's defence they were educated in the Spanish system in which English Romantics don't exist.

As to kindle v books, there's nothing to compare to the look and feel of a book. Some of mine have been with me since I was a teenager. I worry about their ultimate fate when I'm gone when I look at them all lined up on my shelves.
So there IS something to be said for the minimalism of a kindle in that respect.
Right, I'll shut up now.

[Cybele]

But wait, there's more to my tale - my eldest told me - in that same parcel conversation - that her company is sending her to Rome for a week next month ... "Sooooo" I say in as off-handed a way as possible, "will you be getting any free time?.....to see the sights ... you know, the Colosseum, the Forum, the art galleries ..... the KEATS museum...." (you see how nonchalant I was, leaving this to the last).
"Not another. What's he doing in Rome as well?"
In desperation I threw in that I have read there are a lot of cats in the Protestant Cemetery. They like cats.
I have hopes that out of sheer pity she make take the bite. And who knows, even acquire the obsession?
In my children's defence they were educated in the Spanish system in which English Romantics don't exist.

How funny and what a coincidence! Friends of ours are going to Rome later this month. I did the same thing. "Do you have plans to visit the Spanish Steps? How about the Protestant Cemetery?" etc. (She is a retired English teacher, so there's hope. He is a retired psychologist who thinks I'm crazy. )

My well-educated, well-read and very intelligent son-in-law, a product of the Canadian educational system, was only vaguely aware of Keats. (I enlightened him, to my daughter's dismay.)

[robert]

Recently purchased a collection of short stories byAngela Carter

[Ennis]

Hello, everyone!
I have just ordered, but haven't yet received, Fiery Heart: The First Life of Leigh Hunt by Nicholas Roe. Once it arrives and I get around to reading it, it'll be interesting to compare/contrast it to Hunt's Autobiography!!