I read the silly thing in an hour and a half
gawd i hate being a slow reader
Another problem: different cover designs. Sometimes I want the paperback, but the hardcover design is so much better. (cf. Charlie Wilson's War) Contrawise, sometimes the opposite. (I can't quite think of a case of this, but I can say I'm glad I got the HC of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell b/c the jacket is so much better than the softcover image.)
I'm bad with libraries. First, I like owning books -- I reread everything a couple of times, unless it completely sucks. Second, their hours are terrible -- I can't combine getting to the library with being employed. And third, the fines and the associated guilt kill me.
I reread everything a couple of times
damn but do i hate being a slow reader.
Wait, how do you read while doing dishes? That requires two hands and gets water everywhere.
1 gets it exactly right. So will 7, when I read that far.
Here in the UK at least there is a significant delay between first publication in hardback and the time when lending libraries can actually start lending a book. So libraries aren't the answer to that kind of impatience.
Some publishers do release new books in 'premium' paperback form, often in a larger format than the later mass-market paperback, so that's a compromise at least. There are also a few mail-order bookclubs that bring out paperback editions of books early -- more expensive again than the final mass-market paperback but generally cheaper than the hardback edition.
Are you insane? Hardcovers are much nicer than paperbacks. Most trade paperbacks are still too heavy to hold with one hand, and the lack of a stiff binding means they want to close up again the entire time you read them, and they're printed too close into the margin so you end up breaking the spine. Mass-market paperbacks are usually printed badly and the ink comes off on your hands, yukko. Hardbacks don't fall apart if you just take the new book and crease the pages at the spine every few pages, starting from the front and back and working your way into the center. Then the damn thing will stay open on your lap or desk and you can read it while knitting or typing or whatever. (How do you do dishes with one hand???) And of course a hardback is small enough to take with you. Either you have a bag that's big enough to slip a book into, or you carry a small bag, in which case it's light enough to leave that hand free to also hold a book.
In other words, you're just wrong. Although I agree that buying fluff reading in hardback is silly.
8: Um, the dish is sitting in the dishpan in the soapy water, you rub it with a sponge, rinse it off, and you're done. No need to use any non-peripheral vision or your left hand.
I got a pretty sweet hardcover of Tom Jones at a used bookstore for $4. It's part of a series, series editor none other than my main man Robert Maynard Hutchins! I knew then that I had to possess, to ravish it.
13: Doesn't that make the pages stick together?
Small format hardbacks are cool though. I have a tiny 19th or early-20th century edition of Great Expectations printed on some kind of very fine onionskin paper which is smaller than a paperback but manages to have really readable type, illustrations and fits in a jacket pocket.
I like small hardbacks when priced reasonably. Otherwise I find myself thinking, you expect me to pay what for less than 200 pages?!
Yeah, why don't they exist anymore?
Yeah, I checked my shelves and I have a couple of these things. They are all printed by Collins and are pre-WWII, part of some 'budget' series a bit like the Everyman stuff.
Wonderful format, tiny, and aimed at a mass-market. Someone could still produce that sort of thing.
The only small-format hardcover I appear to have is A Pocket Monitor of Ancient Craft Masonry by William M. Shaver, published in Newton, Kansas in 1892 by Henry F. Toevs.
How slow do you have to be to be a slow reader?
90 minutes?
I have switched to buying hardcovers. I generally like the cheapness and compactness of softcovers, but Amazon discounts hardcovers enough that I typically buy them two at a time to get the supershipper discount.
Part of the problem is that I now find out about books over the internet and they are often hardbacks. I used to just buy books off of the new in softback table at bookstores.
The comments on that post are just as depressing as the first time I read them. Why am I in such a reading intensive field?
I'm kind of intrigued by this thing. I like books and all that, but the idea of reclaiming the space in my very small house that's currently devoted to bookshelves is appealing, as is being able to carry around a whole bunch of books at once.
I've heard that E-Ink is supposed to be amazing. I had an earlier reader, and it wasn't such a great experience. I missed turning pages, to be honest.
The "you read while doing the dishes?!" thing reminds me of the last time I went to the eye doctor. I told him I knew it was time for a visit when I could no longer clearly read a magazine propped up on my bathroom sink while brushing my teeth. He looked at me like I was insane.
You people are crazy. Everyone knows that the proper place to read is in the tub.
I don't like baths. I feel like I'm marinating in my own filth.
You don't take baths to get clean. You take baths to read. And maybe to warm up on really cold days. If you're dirty, you take a shower, duh!
Reading in the tub is a perfect illustration of the principle that everything is better in the ideation than the realization. (There follows, as a consequence of this principle*, a straightforward adaptation of the ontological proof of god's existence to show that god does not exist, the formulating of which I leave as an exercise to the commenters.**)
*It just occurred to me that anything that "follows" follows as a "consequence".
**If it turns out that, when explicitly written out, this proof is not so convincing, I will regard that as nothing but further confirmation of the general principle.
I don't like baths. I feel like I'm marinating in my own filth.
This is exactly why I do like baths.
Even if I take a shower first and am totally clean when I take a bath, I still feel like I'm soaking in grossness.
I'm with Ben -- I'll get in a mood occasionally where a bath sounds like a fun, relaxing idea but by the time I actually get around to drawing one and getting in, I remember they're not all they're cracked up to be.
Whoa whoa whoa. Baths are all they're cracked up to be and more. It's reading in a bath that never works.
knew it was time for a visit when I could no longer clearly read a magazine propped up on my bathroom sink while brushing my teeth. He looked at me like I was insane.
You'll know it's time for the next visit when you can no longer see clearly enough to tell if the different foods on your plate are mixing together without putting your face in your food.
Baths are also good for grading papers, I'm telling you people.
I ordered new glasses last week to replace the ones I have that are, what, 7 years old? I think? I splurged and got two pairs. I feel so decadent.
I just got glasses for the first time in 5 years. It's nice to have a pair I can actually use for driving.
I'm not yet persuaded on the bath issue but I could stay in the shower for hours.
I learned about baths when I was pregnant. Also, like I said, they're great when it's midwinter and the house is freezing.
I take a bath every day. I frequently read in them.
I don't think I could ever take a bath if I had roommates. I have a hard enough time with the idea of marinating in my own filth, let alone someone else's.
(Cue Ben: "This is exactly why I do like baths.")
The only small-format hardcover I appear to have is A Pocket Monitor of Ancient Craft Masonry by William M. Shaver, published in Newton, Kansas in 1892 by Henry F. Toevs.
Doesn't anyone here own On Bullshit? Or am I the only one?
Doesn't anyone here own On Bullshit? Or am I the only one?
I own The Importance of What We Care About, which is like On Bullshit except it has a lot more essays.
This talk of baths reminds me of a much-loved away message of mine, which is also a masterpiece of psychic rapport:
rumjuggler: Ima take a shower
rumjuggler: down to the docks
Clock zero: sell it for seawater
rumjuggler: sell it to the crops
Clock zero: OH MY BABY LEFT ME
I own The Importance of What We Care About, which is like On Bullshit except it has a lot more essays.
Yes, but is it a small-format hardcover?
I don't have On Bullshit but do have a few small format hardcovers. Most of them aren't bound, though.
I guess David Byrne's The New Sins (signed!) is a small-format hardback.
This talk of baths reminds me of a much-loved away message of mine, which is also a masterpiece of psychic rapport:
Wow. That rivals in humor your famous "Yo' mama so shaggy" joke.
What? You don't like that joke anymore?
My sister used to read in the bath a lot. Absolutely ruined several books.
ur mean m/tch
You know, I was just about to say "you started it", but then I realized that my memory had somehow completely reversed your and Michael's roles in that hurtful incident, and it's Michael that I should have been being mean to all these years.
Sorry dude.
Waah!! I want the happy kitten error!
Yay! Happy kitten ISE!
I feel certain that it was ben w-lfs-n's skilled hands that brought about this blessed event.
M/tch, what do you know about Ben's skilled hands?
Actually it was becks' skilled tongue-lashing.
M/tch, what do you know about Ben's skilled hands?
Just that they're better than Michael's.
You've been felt up by Ben and Michael? I thought I was supposed to be the slutty one.
Yay! Kitten!
You know, getting that page is bad.
Sometimes being bad feels so good, though.
You've been felt up by Ben and Michael? I thought I was supposed to be the slutty one.
Some talk the talk, others walk the walk.
M/tch, you're just asking for it with a comment like that.
M/tch, you're just asking for it with a comment like that.
Bring it!
Or are you still just talking?
That's it, get on over here. I'll make you walk the walk.
You're not going to make me wear those stilletto heels again, are you? Those things just kill my feet!
Typical. Issue a challenge, then start whining when someone takes it up.
Hey! You said you'd be gentle this time!!
Look, you're the one that said "bring it." Anyway, I'm not into these games. Next time, show up with a notarized consent form. I'ma go to bed now.
Also: I got a kitty on the last comment too. Yay kitties!
This conversation really puts the post title in a new light.
Well, bitchphd got it almost exactly right in 33.
She just left out the part about a cool bath on a hot day.
77: Oops, "kitties" s/b "titties".
Mitch, I'm sure your reasons for being mean to Ben are quite sound. You probably needn't question them.
I can't sleep, so here's a game: Real conservative pablum, or over-the-top satire of conservative pablum?:
As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, and chastity is not. If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? And if gays can’t change, why do liberals think child-molesters can?
81: please don't link us to that tedious twat.
The thread seems to have moved on from this point, but given Tia's recent focus on visual illusions and such, a point has to be made.
Speed reading is crap.
There is no such thing. You can learn to be a better than average skimmer, but you can't ever get around a very simple relationship: as reading speed goes up, comprehension level goes down. Period.
The physiology of your eye is such that you only have the resolution to read a window of about 20 characters each time you fixate your eyes (assuming usual sized fonts), and you can only make about 4 fixations a second. No amount of training is going to change that.
So all you slow readers out there, stop feeling bad.
You're just sitting at a different point along the speed/comprehension continuum.
Mitch, I'm sure your reasons for being mean to Ben are quite sound. You probably needn't question them.
Don't try getting all tricksy on me, Michael, it won't work. The scales have fallen from my eyes and I have now dedicated my life and work to the greater glory of ben w-lfs-n!
Selectively bolding certain letters is the stupid man's acrostic.
Well I was speaking to Michael, darling ben.
"speaking" s/b "writing"
"darling ben" s/b "butter buns"