Value in books ...

26 August

Last night I settle around 12.30 but didn’t drop off for over 90 minutes. That’s a fairly lone time when you’re lying in bed waiting for sleep. Anyway, my thoughts wondered all over, just as normal but at one point they settled for a time on the film the Tom Hanks Philadelphia. In one scene he is sat in a library reading law books and that reminded me of a time when I met up with another old friend of mine Bill Howe just after we first moved to Great Manchester. Bill agreed to meet up with me and show me around the city centre a wee bit. At one point we walked past a book shop which only sells law books. I popped in for look at some of them and was staggered at the price of them.

The cheapest I saw was around £70. How can anyone afford to pay those prices? But that reminds me of a book I bought a couple of years ago, after reading a Peter James novel where he has Roy Grace reading a police book on murder investigation. So I looked on Amazon and thought I had found it, Investigating Murder by Martin Innes, and I bought it, for around the same price of £70. What I didn’t know at the time was that it was part of series of books on criminology. Not only that, it’s not the book James was writing of. I later found that one as PDF file and it now sits on my hard drive waiting to read.

All of the above as got me wondering about the value and cost effectiveness of all books. Let’s face, they are not cheap are they, even with the deals that major book sellers apply? And yet so many of do buy them. So at what point does a book a good buy? A book for 99p in a charity might seem good value, and the same book brand new in hardback from WH SMITHS, might cost £20. On the face of it the 99p book is best value; but what if the buyer takes the book home and it remains on his bookcase unread. The £20 version is begun in a coffee shop and is finished a couple of days later. Now which is the best value?

That £70 book I bought has hardly been touch after its first inspection. I have at least made a start on the PDH file have here, and it’s one I shall have good read of later this year. The other day I added another six books to my TBR (To Be Read), pile. That pile is not just short of 40 books, and I know of some people have even larger piles. Mine will at some point be read though, and once added to the read shelf, they will be there for re-reading at some point, like the Harry Potters, #4 of which I finished for the third time earlier this week.

There’s a discussion doing the rounds about what is best, a physical book or a kindle full off-books. Predictions were made about the death of the printing industry, and in some case that has proved to be partially right. Of our two local papers, one is now a weekly instead of daily, and the free paper is now longer delivered but can be picked up at various locations. In other areas papers have gone on-line. Books sales did dip at one point in favour of e-books, but then the sales figures have since increased to higher levels than before the dip.

As I’ve said before, I have both versions. No, I don’t buy both versions of a book, my kindle has a different selection of books to my book shelves. Both systems have their drawbacks though; even a paperback can be a weighty chunk of paper to haul around with you in a pocket or a bag. But ahh, the looks you get when you sit in a coffee shop and take out your book and begin reading, well worth it carrying. A kindle lets you carry hundreds of books around with you. In the same coffee shop someone takes out a kindle and begins reading, but what are they reading I wonder? Is it the latest blockbuster or something from work that they can work on while at lunch? And then the battery dies on them … oh dear – how sad – what a pity – never mind … Happily that hasn’t happened to me – yet!

To my mind, there’s room for both books and kindles. There’s always a feeling of happiness, of satisfaction when handling a nicely produced book, even a paperback that I get from a book. That is missing in e-books but they do win when it comes to portability. Jan and I take ours with us when we go for a drink or meal. So why all the fuss?

Maxi has decided he likes the leaves of one of Jan’s bonsai seedlings she has going on a small table beside his cage. We open his cage first thing and as long as we don’t need to open the back door to get some air flow, he has the freedom to come and go as he wants. He normally has a fly around the room every so often, which he enjoys but when we do shut his cage during the day, he kicks up a good bit. Ah well, can’t win them all …

Today’s photo …

Kile at the zoo last week.

Today’s funny …

What do you get if you cross a student and an alien?
Something from another universe -ity.