The Digital Age of Books and Music

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Pagecrawler!

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Now on to our regularly scheduled post:

I don't know about you, but I have a obsession regarding my bookshelf. All books have their place and when I get new ones, I hate to see them pile up without a proper home. It takes constant shifting to get the right thickness and height all in order, along with subject/genre. I'm never happy with the arrangement and each time I walk into our studio, I have to fight myself to walk over and start pulling books of the shelf to reorganize them. Where do you put your Maureen Johnson hardbacks and paperbacks? Do you put them together or do the hardbacks go with others of their kind? Or how about those odd sized books that don't seem to fit anywhere? I'm the crazy that puts hardbacks with hardbacks, trade paperback with other trades and mass with mass paperbacks. The odd shaped/sized ones?...don't even get me started.

Growing up, I had this same situation with CDs, but it was a bit easier. I would alphabetize them by singer/group and then within that, by date of the album. Obsessive? Yes. But, I could almost name every CD I owned because of this. Over time, as I've gotten older, my CDs now sit in huge folders. Once digital download became big, I was less obsessed with keeping track of my collection. I still buy real CDs from time to time at used stores or of the groups/singers I really love, but most of the time I just download the album instantly. Why not? I can buy a CD from the comfort of my home, sitting with my cats on my lap, my dog at my feet and a glass of wine on the table next to me. I can even wear my pajamas!

You're probably wondering where this post is going. As I mentioned last month, I bought Barnes and Noble's new ereader, nook. It is my jump into the digital age of books, one I fought for so long. I LOVE reading on it (one thing I wasn't sure about when I ordered it), but I have SOO many "real" books on my shelf! I am rotating, reading one "real" book, then an ebook and so on.

It makes me wonder, at some point will I want to stop organizing my bookshelf like a madwoman and just turn on my nook and let it do the dirty work for me? I think the answer will always be "no". I love ebooks right now, but they AREN'T the same as cracking open a new or old book, smelling the ink and paper and turning the pages one by one. Like my CDs, I will always buy my favorite books/authors as "real" books, and possibly also in ebook because it's great to know that I'm always carrying around a good friend (umm, I mean book) in my purse. I love walking into a bookstore and seeing people cracked open to a page or carrying a huge stack around ready to buy. To me, books will always be around in some kind of paper format, at least one can hope!

How do you organize your books and if you have an ereader, how do you handle reading "real" books vs. your ebooks?

Paper or Plastic?

Hello from the world of ebooks. As of today, I have ventured into the slightly scary world of plastic and not paper. That is, I am now a proud owner of Barnes and Noble's nook (as you can see from the picture to the left which I took with my iPhone).

I have to admit, I have been against ebooks up until now. I am old fashion. Give me oil paint on canvas over digital painting. I always thought the same with books. I love the feel, smell and experience of a real book. I love to go to the bookstore and browse the shelves. I love used bookstores.

That was until I looked around and realized I have close to 1,000 books stored between my house and my parent's house. To move all of those books at some point would be a pain and put a pretty large dent in my wallet.

That doesn't mean I won't buy real books anymore. I will buy my favorite authors in hardback/paperback and will reserve my ereader for books that I don't plan to get signed or collect. I liken it to my cd collection. I used to buy way too many cds and found them bulky. Where to store all the jewel cases? Even if you recycle those, you need folders and folders to keep the actual disk. Since iPods (or mp3 players that is), I only buy the artists that I love. I enjoy looking at the cd jacket and having the physical cd. The rest of my music collection? I either buy used or download when they're released.

As far as buying nook, there were many reasons I chose it over the Kindle. I won't get into that now (maybe a later post), but I hope that nook lives up to my expectations. They are low, I must admit. This is my first venture into an ereader, so just having book digitally and being able to download/buy them at a touch of a button is huge. Sitting at work, I purchased two books and within 30 seconds I had them on the device to read.

I leave for vacation in a few days, and I must say, I'm excited to put nook to the test. I hope that my choice of plastic over paper pays off.