e-books vs p-books

There’s always that edge between the new and the old, uneven like a shoreline rather than a clean, clear cut, like a knife. A kind of gradual taking over of one way of doing things from another. An inexorable tide. And as anyone who’s played catch with an in-coming tide will tell you, if you stand pat the next wave could knock you off your feet.

The decision then, is yours whether to retreat, to hold onto the old ways and never leave these shores and therefore never discover a new world, or see the old one from a new perspective. The trouble with ‘the new wave’ is that it is only an incoming tide; it never recedes.

What is it about books, Paper books that we love? That parchment that grew out of the papyrus of the Nile and found its way into our grasping hands and hungry minds ravenous for knowledge and then fantasy and escape into worlds beyond our worlds. Delving into the murky recesses of our minds.

Some will tell you it’s holding a paper book that makes a difference. There is a tactile connection between the written word and your senses. We feel that because we touch it, there may be an osmotic transference of knowledge, a story, a thought. Caressing the pages, flicking through them the words may then enter the blood stream directly.

A ‘p-book’, excuse the play on the letter, carries with it a smell, a fragrance touched by time, nudging the olfactory nerves and like Alice’s rabbit our minds go willingly down the rabbit hole awakening a warren of memories. All that, even before we’ve read a single word.

That’s why there are a growing number of confessors to the subtle and swift act of sniffing a p-book. I believe, there’s been a study on what causes that unique, euphoric, some would say mind-expanding smell of a book. It’s caused by chemicals termed Volatile Organic Compounds or, in the case of old books a combination of “the gradual breakdown of cellulose and Lignin – in the paper – binding adhesive or glue and printing ink”. Interesting that what attracts us to the old paper books is decay. Is it an intimation from the paper that’s telling us to move on?

And e-books?

More than a new wave, they represent a sea change. If we refuse to adapt and accustom ourselves to reading them then a time may come when all new information, thought, ways of expressing ourselves, will be lost to us. For those who have never been exposed to the form, sentences like: ‘d trbl w u is dat u unliked me, dat’s y m leaving’ could well be the e-book’s farewell to the p-book.

Gobbledegook and laziness, you, on the paper side of the argument say?

Speed and efficiency, the other side counters.

E-books offer us a myriad other options. Knowledge at our fingertips, no need for osmosis and retention in our hippocampus; just Google it while you’re reading. No need to get up in search of a dictionary, some e-books have one embedded in them, easily accessible - right click and voila, it’s there.

From Gutenberg to a number of e-book inventors (including Bob Brown, Roberto Busa, Angela Ruiz Robies, Doug Engelbert and Andries van Dam and Michael S Hart) the motivation and Holy Grail has always been the wider dissemination of knowledge. Whether information equates to knowledge is another discussion altogether.

The other, less celebrated aim is convenience. And the e-book supplies that by the terabyte. Increase the font, reduce or enhance the backlighting. Agreed, the bookmarks aren’t as pretty.

In the end we are torn between nostalgia for yesterday and the thirst for the knowledge that tomorrow promises. Like the first woman ever, we reach out, pluck an e-book out of cyberspace and confess to downloading it. After the first time, it becomes easier. The first time is always the most difficult.

Once, having tasted the ephemeral joy of an e-book, we find ourselves drawn away from paper, trees and roots. Anchor-less we float towards the stars and in free-fall we find that we can dance.