Why Audio?

[lightcrystal]

I don't read dead tree books anymore. My desk used to be set up to read them; now a computer, speakers, a microphone, a keyboard and other bric brac cover my desk. No space for a book! I only read digital books, either pdf or audio books. I also read some digital comics. I was enjoying Black Magick by Nicola Scott and Greg Rucka. Then Image Comics stopped publishing in a pdf format. They changed to a rental model on a website. Or dead tree comics. None of that interests me so I stopped reading. Pity. It was a good comic series.

Any dead tree book is a dead loss here in Australia. The time to get it posted - months - and the shipping cost. Don't get me started on Kindle. If I want my books to vanish I will hire Mandrake the Magician. I could go into a book shop but most of them are celebrity name trade books like "Carl the Olympic swimmer: his amazing cookbook!" It raises the issue that there are books that people like myself will never read because we are digital consumers.

[TriciaG]

I was enjoying Black Magick by Nicola Scott and Greg Rucka. Then Image Comics stopped publishing in a pdf format. They changed to a rental model on a website. Or dead tree comics. None of that interests me so I stopped reading. Pity. It was a good comic series.

Off topic, but this reminds me of the latest shenanigans the broadcast networks are pulling: showing the first 4-6 episodes of a TV series on broadcast, then switching it to their pay-only subscription service.

Bye bye, SEAL Team. It was nice knowing you. We'll never see you again, unless the broadcaster re-runs your episodes broadcast TV in a few years.

[lightcrystal]

I even sent an email to Image Comics about them dropping the PDF comic book format. I wasn't abusive. I explained my concerns. They sent me a reply of quasi corporate gobbledygook. They had some brilliant comics. I also loved "Birthright" which is like Conan but the hero goes on farce missions that are comical. The timing of words and art was genius; one scene where the hero's family tell the police "he's harmless and peaceful" and the next picture is "you sure?" with a table of swords, axes and weapons on a table "we found these in his bedroom."

There was even talk of Birthright being made into a movie. It would make a good one.

Back in the day [1980's] there used to be audio books on cassette. My local library had an upstairs section full of them. I listened to one of Arthur C Clarke's novels.

[ChrisGreaves]

I don't read dead tree books anymore. My desk used to be set up to read them; ...

I know of a tertiary college library in South Australia that is encouraging students to borrow hard-copy books and not return them. The library needs the space for other purposes.
Also hard-copy books are labour intensive, shelf-checks, re-shelving, trolleys to be pushed around and do on.

That said, I have pondered for many years why I prefer hard-copy books:-
http://www.chrisgreaves.com/ClearThinking/WhyBooks.htm

Cheers
Chris

[lightcrystal]

I don't read dead tree books anymore. My desk used to be set up to read them; ...

I know of a tertiary college library in South Australia that is encouraging students to borrow hard-copy books and not return them. The library needs the space for other purposes.
Also hard-copy books are labour intensive, shelf-checks, re-shelving, trolleys to be pushed around and do on.

That said, I have pondered for many years why I prefer hard-copy books:-
http://www.chrisgreaves.com/ClearThinking/WhyBooks.htm

Cheers
Chris

Hard copy books can lead to weird consequences. I have a family member who studied at Oxford University. When he went into the library back in the 60's the staff deliberately left trolleys and chairs in front of the shelves to discourage people from borrowing books! The staff didn't want people to damage the books by borrowing them! I have his science books collection. Some priceless hard books - J.Z.Young's books on mammals , German Scientific dictionaries; back then in a science degree in the UK it was mandatory to do a unit of Scientific German because so much scientific stuff was in German. I gather that in the 70's that degree requirement was dropped.

p.s Suddenly I remember something else.
I have a series of priceless books on botany. A scientific institute [not saying which one for my own privacy lol] decided just to throw them into the garbage bin to save space. They didn't even bother to ask a university 5 minutes walk away. They didn't even tell the scientists; one of them walked past the bin and noticed the books in it. He took them out and took them home for himself!! He gave some of them to me! You could not make some stuff up about how anti-knowledge some institutions are.