Comments on: This is James Daunt’s super power

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 15:51:05 +0000

Some e-books are more equal than others.

By: Bob Sykes

Bob Sykes — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 13:36:46 +0000

A number of years ago, Amazon discovered it did not have the right to distribute electronic versions of “1984″ on Kindle. So it removed it from all Kindles, and gave refunds to the people affected.

In general, once you buy an electronic book, the vendor keeps a record of the purchase, so you can download if you get a new reader.

More importantly, any vendor of electronic books has a record of your reading habits and electronic library. That is why you can switch Kindles, and the second Kindle knows where you left off in the first.

PS. My favorite bookstore in recent years was Borders. The best academic bookstores I ever visited were at U. Michigan and UC Berkeley. I grew up in Boston in the 50′s and 60′s and there seemed to be an infinite number of good to great used book stores.

No more, sadly.

By: Albion

Albion — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 13:07:58 +0000

Funny this: I have just returned from visiting a Waterstones and love the store. One thing to note is how they present books; it is a clean, welcoming environment with books treated properly. A rival book chain not only used to stack books on the floor, which made them look cheap, but also saved money by having half the lights in the place turned off. This made browsing near impossible, hence fewer sales.

There is also the theory, it should be said, that the lure of digital books is deceptive. I have heard of books being removed from people’s electronic devices after a time even though they have paid for them. It is almost as if they were merely borrowed, not bought. I accept this may not be entirely accurate. It could be people accidentally deleting them, though that is hard to do with a real, hold-it-in-your hand book which can be passed down.