09:25 – Today, Christians world-wide gather to celebrate the resurrection of the Easter Bunny. The fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that the Easter Bunny ever actually lived, let alone died and was resurrected, is apparently no impediment.
Interesting article on CNN about the boom in ebooks. The article ignores, as most do, the really significant factor: that the 90/10 rule applies in spades to ebooks and ereaders. That is, 10% of the readers read 90% of the books. Serious readers–those who read, say, 50 or more books a year–have migrated overwhelmingly to ereaders and ebooks. These readers as a group still read pbooks, but they buy very few of them. Most are borrowed from the library or friends, and when they do buy a new book it’s generally a paperback from an airport shop because they need something to read until they can recharge their Kindles. And if they do buy a new fiction hardback, it’s almost certainly from Amazon rather than a local bookstore. The entire traditional publishing infrastructure is disappearing, being replaced by the new ebook infrastructure. This is really good news for authors and really, really bad news for publishers, agents, bookstores, and the rest of traditional publishing.
The other sea change is the shift of books themselves from the scarcity model to the abundance model. In the Bad Olde Days, Barbara and I kept close eyes on our to-be-read piles because we didn’t want to run out of things to read. Nowadays, although we still have pbook TBR piles, there’s really no need for them. We have virtual TBR piles that contain millions of ebooks, all available with a few mouse clicks. We can read whatever we want to read, whenever we want to read it. Which also means we can be a lot pickier about what we choose to read. If we start a book and it turns out to be mediocre or worse, there’s no need to continue reading it just because it’s what we happen to have available. We can abandon it and move on to something better.
Nor need our virtual library be expensive. There are now literally hundreds of thousands of ebooks out there priced from $0.99 to $3 or $4, and that’s assuming we pay Amazon for them rather than simply download free ebooks, many of which are as good or better than the pay-for ebooks. In fact, a significant percentage of the free ebooks are pay-for titles that are temporarily given away to promote them and their authors. Barbara and I could both read every waking moment for the rest of our lives without putting even a small dent in the currently available titles, let alone the flood of new titles being released every day. In short, having new good stuff to read is now a solved problem.
“Serious readers–those who read, say, 50 or more books a year–have migrated overwhelmingly to ereaders and ebooks.”
We don’t really fit into this scenario here; Mrs. OFD and I each read fah more than 50 books a year, probably more like three or four times that, and we get our books by hook or crook from wherever; small bookstores, Amazon, Kindle, secondhand stores, borrowed from friends, etc. We are sick, sick people and have been that way all our lives and there is no health in us.
You’re right about one thing, though; the vast majority of it, especially the new stuff (1975—on) is garbage. The very late Clive Staples Lewis advised reading two or three old books for every new one and I try to follow that. There is nothing much new under the sun.
This is the biggest Christian holiday today, but, like Christmas, I find it difficult to make it to services, a failing on my part, to be sure. The churches will be packed to the rafters, no parking anywhere near, and most of the people inside will be people I am just now laying eyes on, etc., etc. I don’t believe in ginning up the bunny and chocolate candy schtick for the kiddies and this year, once again, no one from family is around for the giant dinner bonanza.
So ol’ OFD is alone in a nice, quiet and peaceful house. What a shame.
I’ve also encouraged my Twins to check out sites like Project Gutenberg for tons of free, classic, well written stuff. They both have a Kindle Fire. I taught them how to use Calibre to manage a library. They love Amazon gift cards for Kindle which makes gift giving easy.
May the Lord be with you, Bob. I mean Lord Voldemort in your case. Wouldn’t want to insult you or anything. lol
RBT wrote:
“The fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that the Easter Bunny ever actually lived, let alone died and was resurrected, is apparently no impediment.”
You better not keep saying stuff like this or people will start thinking you’re an atheist.
Just had an e-mail from Amazon, suggesting the following book:
“Customers who have purchased or rated Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science) by Robert Bruce Thompson might like to know that Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture will be released on May 2, 2012. You can pre-order yours at a savings of $15.40 by following the link below.”
Anyone heard of this guy? Think it might be worth getting? 🙂
That’s interesting. I see that Amazon is still taking pre-orders at $19.59. A week or two ago, O’Reilly decided to increase the retail price from $29.99 to $34.99. I expected Amazon to change their discounted price to the $22 range.
I also noticed that the sales rank is already in the 30,000 range, which isn’t bad at all for a book that won’t actually be available until late this month or early next.
I think he’s a hunter or something. He likes to shoot his own venison. Though I’ve also heard he’s some kind of snooty gourmand and only likes special venison from special deer.
Sometimes you do the right thing for less than ideal reasons. As first owners in the house in which we have lived for 45 years, we have less that 40 sq. ft. of custom built book shelving attached to the studs.
Oh yeah, they hold several score pounds of photo albums with 4″ x 6″ prints in them. Another thing for whatever reason: We never owned a Polaroid camera.
My grandmother never missed a church service during the year–except Easter. From the time she was a young girl, she refused to attend Easter services, saying it was the one Sunday of the year when people who had no interest whatever in Church or religion attended, and they only went to show off their brand-new Easter clothes.
So all during my years when she was alive, she stayed at home on Easter and fixed a massively good dinner, instead. From the time she was 7, she and 2 other of her sisters, cooked 3 meals a day for a family of 14 kids, 2 parents, and 1 grandparent. She was a really good cook.
This is an old sore point for me; both Chuck’s grandma and various clergy I have talked with about it are correct. Yeah, almost all the buggers are in there, the C&E people, we called them, to make a Show. And the clergy tell me to be happy that they come at all, and have some Christian charity, etc.
The alternative service today, which I had momentarily forgotten about, shame on me, is the traditional sunrise service, which I could have gone to even if I had to travel a bit. Those generally attract a bare dozen or two people, shivering in the cold and near-dark, but they also make a bigger impression, I think. And mean more. Otherwise it means the hassles with parking, crowds and a building packed with strangers.
I’d just as soon do as Chuck’s grandmother did and do the sunrise mass and then spend the day cooking for everybody. Perfect solution. Now I just need to remember to drag my raggedy old ass outta bed next year at O’Dark-Thirty.
As for the books, I am about to undertake a severe culling operation in the next few weeks, being ruthless, cruel and savage, even. My goal is to get rid of about at least half of all our accumulated junk, and that includes books we’ve read that we won’t read again, books that we never will read, and all the piles of magazines that I have been saving on the chance that I might need to refer to an article in them at some point. Know how many times I’ve had to do that?
Yeah.
Yeah, I have a math/science book that I’ve been meaning to read. Actually, I tried when Barbara bought it for me several years ago. I got lost while I was reading the preface.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Road-Reality-Complete-Universe/dp/0679454438
I went to Easter Sunday morning service yesterday, first visit to a church since Christmas morning. The people weren’t there to show off, most dress was pretty casual – I wore a pair of 25 year old trousers. The place was reasonably full but not bursting at the seams.
How nice for you, Greg, that you can wear quarter-century-old trousers (we barbarians call them “pants” over here in North America). I am long past them days, sir.
Plus I was just informed by Mrs. OFD, currently in Florider with MIL, that we Catholics do not do Easter sunrise services, that is an Episcopalian thing. We do the Saturday vigil. Hey, even better! Hit that on Holy Saturday and then sleep in on Easter Sunday and later get to cooking up all the grub, make everybody happy. Got a recipe for orange-baked ham, scalloped spuds, broiled asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and stuffed with cheese, topped with bacon bits and chopped nuts; candied carrots, beets, and strawberry-lemonade cake.
SteveF says (8 April 2012 at 13:02):
Anyone heard of this guy?
I think he’s a hunter or something. He likes to shoot his own venison. Though I’ve also heard he’s some kind of snooty gourmand and only likes special venison from special deer.
Close. The rumour I heard is that he’s making a con-census (directed polling if ever there was an example of the case) where he tries to promulgate the myth that USA beer is good beer. However, while it may be special beer, it’s not good beer. In fact, it’s rein beer, made from oh-so-special boutique golden rain when his special rain deer are startled by his special deer gear, letting loose upon an unsuspecting world RBT’s precious idea of a boutique rein deer rain beer.
OFD wrote:
“How nice for you, Greg, that you can wear quarter-century-old trousers (we barbarians call them “pants” over here in North America). I am long past them days, sir.”
The Poms call them trousers, “pants” are underpants to them. The term “pants” is ambiguous her in Oz. I judge by the context which is meant. “Jocks” can mean underpants here, and I only use the word “knickers” for the female equivalent. The term “Panties” is an obnoxious Americanism – but the (female) wearers are not, unless we’re talking about Nancy Pelosi and the other feminist pit bulls.
I just pre-ordered the biology book.
It’s currently much higher than the “30,000 range” you mentioned 20 hours ago:
(Here’s hoping the formatting comes out vaguely legible.)
Not bad for a book that hasn’t been released yet.
Thanks!
A sub-10,000 sales rank for a book that’s not yet been released is excellent.