Minute fun. Farewell to paper books
Somehow, wandering through the hills of San Francisco, I turned on my phone search for nearby bookstores. The picture upset me, with a dozen addresses, each of which ended in a sacramental - closed. Within Chinatown, one of the addresses turned out to be working. Diving into the street named after Kerouac, I stumbled upon plates with the sayings of various writers, plodding along them, turned onto the next street and found myself in front of the City Lights store. Inside there are three floors, little space, a pile of shelves with conditional separation of books by authors and topics. What guarantees an hour of searching without a goal and a selection of books that you might like. No computer pointers, memory vendors are trying to help you find what interests you. Unerringly taxiing to a huge shelf and showing three or four small books in the corner. Aerobatics. With them you can discuss the latest income, learn about their tastes and preferences. If you need such communication, but no, you can dig into independent searches with your head. And stumble upon books that slipped away from your gaze but look promising. A store for those who like to read, and does not apply to books as utilitarian items. Electronic bookstores, this is a modern fast food from the world of books, you resort to buy the right book, not understanding how it looks, how it will be read, but following the recommendation of a friend or some kind of review. It’s somehow stupid to wander through the e-shop and not a single person has such a habit, it makes no sense. Drawing the analogy further, bookstores are like gastronomic boutiques offering a selection of different dishes for those who have learned to consume them. Of course, those who need to buy one specific book and run further into the turmoil of the city also come running here. Somewhere there are most of these people, somewhere they are much smaller.
')
But such bookstores fly off the foliage, their age has passed. The first bell rang in 2010, the largest network of Borders began to close stores outside the United States. In London, I did not find my favorite store, which gave me the discovery of a dozen new authors and books. Instead, a denim boutique appeared, as if there had never been a book in this place. A year later in San Francisco, I lost another Borders at Union Square. A huge, home-made store where you could sit at the top with coffee and browse selected books, choosing the ones that will stay with you. This world has already been destroyed. IT'S A PITY.
When I got my first pocket money, I often spent it on books. He came to a large bookstore and wandered between the shelves. I had enough money for one, two books and I had to choose them correctly, with an eye to it. Careful scrolling through the pages, glimpse one of them, sometimes at the beginning, sometime at the end. Run your finger along the spine, remember the feeling. Some books in their hands sound, and some do not respond at all, they are lifeless. Since then, the ritual remained unchanged, getting the first salary I went to the bookstores. These were second-hand shops on the ruins of old Moscow, in dilapidated alleys and in the same crumbling shops covered with dust from books. The indescribable smell of old books, yellowed pages and searches in heaps of junk of real pearls. Large stores, where books of various authors stood in alphabetical or alphabetical order, and the most interesting were placed near the cash registers. Then, in these strongholds, books of printing mastered the display both alphabetically and by topic, it became interesting to guess what topics and by chance they attributed this or that book. The philosophical treatise could be found in the section of radio electronics, because the name contained the word telephone. The coloring book for children with the absurd word business was attributed to business literature, where she stood for a week, until a meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place.
My children already probably will not have to see such expanses of bookstores. Under the pressure of electronic literature, these mastodons of the past are retreating, and I myself involuntarily vote against them. It's one thing to wait for the book to appear in print and quite another, the ability to instantly buy it on Amazon and immediately start reading on the Kindle or any other device. We lose the idea of the form of the book, its weight, print quality, volume. Giving in to general hysteria, I acquired the biography of Steve Jobs. There are many pages in it, my iPad showed several thousand sheets. How much is this, what is the equivalent of my time in the real world? I read quickly, but will I have a week or will it take several weeks to swallow this book? I dont know. At the airport, I first saw what a paper book looked like. Good 800 pages of text in a standard cover. It is huge, without any understatement. This should be kept on the coffee table at home, and it is clearly not for the road, but for dimensional reading. Notice that book publishers played with our attention; they created the format that they think best explains the book. Large books for power reading in a quiet home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the midst of public transport or in the breaks when you go to the park. There were universal formats and those that did not want to make out. Books were different. But e-books almost destroyed this diversity and continue their offensive.
And paper? The paper itself was selected so that you understand what you are reading. Font, design, it all said that before you is another hack of a prolific writer-graphomaniac or a real work of art. Sometimes one was disguised as another and it was also a kind of game. Books losing their physical self lost a lot. But we lost even more. I am sure that in the future they will invent the equivalent of this book. Electronic weight, size and maybe even imitating the smell of ink and the rustle of pages will be shown. Sometime in the distant future, if there remain those who remember these sensations and do not consider them old-fashioned. But bookstores sink into oblivion, remain an anachronism.
But my world of bookstores is falling into the abyss. I have to admit it. In the world there will be separate reservations for such fans of books like me. This will not happen quickly, the old will move away for a long time, but already my children will not find this world. And this is sad, because leaving is not just a habit. Reading with the advent of electronic devices have become more and all the research speaks about it. The possibility of exploring our space in a different way and exploring the world, discovering a new yielding to the temptation to spin the regiment in the section of books on psychology and discovering the manifesto of Jaron Lanir on it is leaving. It will be impossible. Instead, the search string and keywords that will interest the Amazon visitor, along with the maximum number of positive reviews in a certain age group living in Greater London. The search will be sophisticated, you will be able to find books on phrases and words, mood, what people of your circle read in a particular country, city, or even a city district. The terrible picture, which predetermines the fact that many writers will be left out, simply because they did not receive five stars in a timely manner in the readers' rating and they would be interesting to marginal groups that remain faithful to the old customs. Moreover, this terrible world with a complex and unique search assumes that we ourselves will limit the world of books, change them in an unimaginable way. A writer who writes a commercial novel will follow the ideas of optimizing his book for a search algorithm, rather than creating something that he can be proud of. Of course, it is necessary to share commercial literature, which is flourishing today, with what is written for other reasons. And today, reading some popular books, you understand that the author wrote the script for the film, did not do a literary work that can be comfortably read. It was and will be. But the main idea that rules the book world today will change.
The need for censorship in this world will disappear by itself. Why ban books and treatises, if they will not read? Enough to put low ratings or throw them out of the search, so that they cease to exist for most readers. In physical terms, their existence will not be in danger, as well as the authors. But to receive recognition or influence the real world, they almost can not. They are out of ratings, out of cars, out of time. I admit that there will be associations of people who will begin to fight with such a system and will begin to artificially add a rating to this or that book. Sometimes it will be worthy books, but more often the crowd will play in the promotion of low-grade literature, simply because it's funny. And by this the whole idea of such movements will be compromised.
And again to the fore, as once come out recommendations of friends and parents. Books will lose their greatness to some extent, but they will again acquire a narrow circle of those who will recommend them within their own small social circle. Will this system balance those search and book-provisioning algorithms that have already been created today? Not sure. I do not want to believe in the terrible outcome of the history of books, it is more pleasant for me to believe that we, as humanity, will somehow get out again and figure out how to deal with this. In the end, we successfully managed to do it in the past, why not allow that in the future, we will win in the fight with ourselves. Definitely the chances of winning are great. But bookstores will not return this. Physical media is a luxury in the digital age. Therefore, our libraries acquire weightlessness, and they contain such quantities of books that no man will read in his life. Do we need such electronic breakup? I'm sure not. I feel sad about the outgoing world of books and I understand that in the future they will be less and less. The time is not far off when publishers will begin to cheerfully report that the book of such and such a writer is for the first time published only in digital format, and on paper will begin to print books for great reasons and for collectors. This is the business of the next decade. The book does not kill, it was said in the eponymous collection of Umber Eco. But it can be crippled and changed beyond recognition. This is what we do together, although we often don’t understand the consequences of our actions. Each time typing in the search box of the e-bookshop "technique, adventure, space, 25th century", you bring closer the world that I described. Make it a little more real. We already read differently, but tomorrow everything will change. I am a mastodon from an old era and until the last I will remain faithful to paper books, but my time is gone and I can see it from today. Let me still have 20-30 years left for me, which I will stock up on paper with my favorite writers. Form your stock for a rainy day. What I recommend to do to you. Tomorrow it may be too late.
')
But such bookstores fly off the foliage, their age has passed. The first bell rang in 2010, the largest network of Borders began to close stores outside the United States. In London, I did not find my favorite store, which gave me the discovery of a dozen new authors and books. Instead, a denim boutique appeared, as if there had never been a book in this place. A year later in San Francisco, I lost another Borders at Union Square. A huge, home-made store where you could sit at the top with coffee and browse selected books, choosing the ones that will stay with you. This world has already been destroyed. IT'S A PITY.
When I got my first pocket money, I often spent it on books. He came to a large bookstore and wandered between the shelves. I had enough money for one, two books and I had to choose them correctly, with an eye to it. Careful scrolling through the pages, glimpse one of them, sometimes at the beginning, sometime at the end. Run your finger along the spine, remember the feeling. Some books in their hands sound, and some do not respond at all, they are lifeless. Since then, the ritual remained unchanged, getting the first salary I went to the bookstores. These were second-hand shops on the ruins of old Moscow, in dilapidated alleys and in the same crumbling shops covered with dust from books. The indescribable smell of old books, yellowed pages and searches in heaps of junk of real pearls. Large stores, where books of various authors stood in alphabetical or alphabetical order, and the most interesting were placed near the cash registers. Then, in these strongholds, books of printing mastered the display both alphabetically and by topic, it became interesting to guess what topics and by chance they attributed this or that book. The philosophical treatise could be found in the section of radio electronics, because the name contained the word telephone. The coloring book for children with the absurd word business was attributed to business literature, where she stood for a week, until a meticulous merchandiser, took it to its proper place.
My children already probably will not have to see such expanses of bookstores. Under the pressure of electronic literature, these mastodons of the past are retreating, and I myself involuntarily vote against them. It's one thing to wait for the book to appear in print and quite another, the ability to instantly buy it on Amazon and immediately start reading on the Kindle or any other device. We lose the idea of the form of the book, its weight, print quality, volume. Giving in to general hysteria, I acquired the biography of Steve Jobs. There are many pages in it, my iPad showed several thousand sheets. How much is this, what is the equivalent of my time in the real world? I read quickly, but will I have a week or will it take several weeks to swallow this book? I dont know. At the airport, I first saw what a paper book looked like. Good 800 pages of text in a standard cover. It is huge, without any understatement. This should be kept on the coffee table at home, and it is clearly not for the road, but for dimensional reading. Notice that book publishers played with our attention; they created the format that they think best explains the book. Large books for power reading in a quiet home environment. Pocket format in order to swallow it on the run, in the midst of public transport or in the breaks when you go to the park. There were universal formats and those that did not want to make out. Books were different. But e-books almost destroyed this diversity and continue their offensive.
And paper? The paper itself was selected so that you understand what you are reading. Font, design, it all said that before you is another hack of a prolific writer-graphomaniac or a real work of art. Sometimes one was disguised as another and it was also a kind of game. Books losing their physical self lost a lot. But we lost even more. I am sure that in the future they will invent the equivalent of this book. Electronic weight, size and maybe even imitating the smell of ink and the rustle of pages will be shown. Sometime in the distant future, if there remain those who remember these sensations and do not consider them old-fashioned. But bookstores sink into oblivion, remain an anachronism.
But my world of bookstores is falling into the abyss. I have to admit it. In the world there will be separate reservations for such fans of books like me. This will not happen quickly, the old will move away for a long time, but already my children will not find this world. And this is sad, because leaving is not just a habit. Reading with the advent of electronic devices have become more and all the research speaks about it. The possibility of exploring our space in a different way and exploring the world, discovering a new yielding to the temptation to spin the regiment in the section of books on psychology and discovering the manifesto of Jaron Lanir on it is leaving. It will be impossible. Instead, the search string and keywords that will interest the Amazon visitor, along with the maximum number of positive reviews in a certain age group living in Greater London. The search will be sophisticated, you will be able to find books on phrases and words, mood, what people of your circle read in a particular country, city, or even a city district. The terrible picture, which predetermines the fact that many writers will be left out, simply because they did not receive five stars in a timely manner in the readers' rating and they would be interesting to marginal groups that remain faithful to the old customs. Moreover, this terrible world with a complex and unique search assumes that we ourselves will limit the world of books, change them in an unimaginable way. A writer who writes a commercial novel will follow the ideas of optimizing his book for a search algorithm, rather than creating something that he can be proud of. Of course, it is necessary to share commercial literature, which is flourishing today, with what is written for other reasons. And today, reading some popular books, you understand that the author wrote the script for the film, did not do a literary work that can be comfortably read. It was and will be. But the main idea that rules the book world today will change.
The need for censorship in this world will disappear by itself. Why ban books and treatises, if they will not read? Enough to put low ratings or throw them out of the search, so that they cease to exist for most readers. In physical terms, their existence will not be in danger, as well as the authors. But to receive recognition or influence the real world, they almost can not. They are out of ratings, out of cars, out of time. I admit that there will be associations of people who will begin to fight with such a system and will begin to artificially add a rating to this or that book. Sometimes it will be worthy books, but more often the crowd will play in the promotion of low-grade literature, simply because it's funny. And by this the whole idea of such movements will be compromised.
And again to the fore, as once come out recommendations of friends and parents. Books will lose their greatness to some extent, but they will again acquire a narrow circle of those who will recommend them within their own small social circle. Will this system balance those search and book-provisioning algorithms that have already been created today? Not sure. I do not want to believe in the terrible outcome of the history of books, it is more pleasant for me to believe that we, as humanity, will somehow get out again and figure out how to deal with this. In the end, we successfully managed to do it in the past, why not allow that in the future, we will win in the fight with ourselves. Definitely the chances of winning are great. But bookstores will not return this. Physical media is a luxury in the digital age. Therefore, our libraries acquire weightlessness, and they contain such quantities of books that no man will read in his life. Do we need such electronic breakup? I'm sure not. I feel sad about the outgoing world of books and I understand that in the future they will be less and less. The time is not far off when publishers will begin to cheerfully report that the book of such and such a writer is for the first time published only in digital format, and on paper will begin to print books for great reasons and for collectors. This is the business of the next decade. The book does not kill, it was said in the eponymous collection of Umber Eco. But it can be crippled and changed beyond recognition. This is what we do together, although we often don’t understand the consequences of our actions. Each time typing in the search box of the e-bookshop "technique, adventure, space, 25th century", you bring closer the world that I described. Make it a little more real. We already read differently, but tomorrow everything will change. I am a mastodon from an old era and until the last I will remain faithful to paper books, but my time is gone and I can see it from today. Let me still have 20-30 years left for me, which I will stock up on paper with my favorite writers. Form your stock for a rainy day. What I recommend to do to you. Tomorrow it may be too late.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288884/
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