Determined to Read
When he traveled the country, McCarthy always carried a 100-watt bulb in his bag so he could read at night, no matter where he was sleeping.
Books + ebooks
It slightly boggles me that there’s no option in the software to redefine two, three, or ten typefaces rather than just one; it’s not as if that’s a massive drain on processing power even for an e-reader. My ongoing conviction is that we’re still dealing with the first and least interesting iteration of the ebook technology, which is surprisingly inflexible and constrained given that real books are the opposite – constantly overflowing their conceptual borders and doing cheeky things with fold-outs, pop-ups, turning into art canvases, and other experimental orthogonalities – and I believe there’s a minor world-changer in the background for whoever can do the second wave of ebooks properly.
We are in the first and least interesting phase of ebooks–I agree 100% with that. What is holding everyone back? Publishers? Book designers who haven’t opened their minds to new opportunities? Or perhaps not enough authors who push the envelope? Clearly, ebooks have advantages, like creating notes, looking up words, using different color highlights, copying phrases. That can all happen seamlessly and very quickly, and without carrying different color highlighters around. But so far I haven’t seen a lot of cool things done with type, or actually anything that can’t be done with a regular paper book.
Right off the bat I thought how wonderfully infuriating it would be if a who-done-it had a last paragraph where a word changed from dead to alive, and back, depending on the time of day. Or words flickered in and out, leaving doubt as to which was true. Photos can be printed in a book as well, but what about short video scenes or GIFs?
I am looking forward to ebook, phase two.
Advice
From the book Hopeland by Ian McDonald.
Trigger of Light
In Los Angeles, browsing Chinatown one summer, I discovered — in a dim sandalwood-scented shop full of painted vases and antique scrolls — a book by D. T. Suzuki: Zen and Japanese Culture. It was a substantial hardback, printed on milky paper with a hefty scattering of illustrations: insects on withered leafs, brush-painted tigers, peach blossoms in snow, monkeys peering from bamboo, cloud-hidden huts of meditation masters. In the shop, a few joss sticks burned in a ray of light. A cat napped under a red and gold altar with antique photos over it. Tangerines glowed in their porcelain bowl on a carved mahogany table. The world seemed suddenly very old — and very new. In awe of the book’s content and illustrations, I purchased it (probably the most I’d ever spent on the printed word) and eagerly devoured every page.
Article by John Brandi in Kyoto Journal.
Also this:
Among the grasses
an unknown flower
blooming white—Masaoka Shiki (1869—1902)
Temples of Books
‘Temples of Books’ Is an Ode to the Grandeur and Democratic Ideals of Public Libraries
Lots of lovely images of libraries. I can almost smell the books!! Click on the link or on the image below…
Thinking in Centuries
In his new book, The Long View: Why We Need To Transform How the World Sees Time, BBC journalist Richard Fisher explains how this short-term mindset has come to dominate Western society, why that could spell disaster for our future, and explores historic and real world examples of those who are taking a long-term view.
From the architects who began work on England’s Wells Cathedral in 1175 knowing that construction wouldn’t be complete until well after their deaths, to an experiment at an Australian laboratory still ongoing a century after it began, and the Indigenous tribes whose ways of life are centered on intergenerational links, Fisher argues what makes humans unique is our ability to learn from the past and envision the future.
