« Just read! | Main | Tips ved semesterstart »
January 16, 2006
Curling up with a laptop
They say e-books are practical and good for the environment, but that they will never replace books because people aren't willing to curl up on their couch with a computer. Yet I am about to do just that, because I discovered that a book I used to regularly steal from a friend's bookshelf whenever I visited her, is actually available to me right here. So here goes.
These past few months, I have also started typing school notes and even my personal diary rather than writing them by hand. Writing my diary on a computer has plenty of advantages: it's faster so that I can write my thoughts almost as at the speed in which I think them, and I can copy and paste e-mails, quotes etc. right into my entries. Friends say that I am "so advanced" and that they are "impressed" because I do this - not because I keep a journal or make almost frighteningly organized notes, but because I do these things on a computer. I'm guessing that these same friends feel that handwritten letters are more personal - actually the e-mails I write are usually more personal than my handwritten letters. My personal e-mails are spontaneous and therefore very heartfelt, while letters I hand write seem like more of a chore when I have to ponder every choice of words in fear of having to start on a new sheet of flowered stationary.
That said, I love traditional books. Not just the words, but the actual books as objects. I can say without exaggeration that the more books are in a room, the better I feel in that room. I discovered this on a trip to Ikea, when they had set up a living room filled with books to show off their bookshelves. I started looking over the titles, completely forgetting why I was there. When in bookstores and libraries, I can spend a lot of time just looking at the bookshelves, without pulling out any books. This is what I will miss if/when books become antique artifacts rather than useful objects. Yet there's nothing wrong with decorating one's living room with useless antiques.
So that's what I will do: cover my walls with books and curl up on the couch with my laptop.
Posted by Julie at January 16, 2006 11:23 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.espen.com/cgi-local/mt/mt-tb.cgi/668