What makes books better than other things?

[Yora]

So some people complain, and probably did so for many generations, that young people don't read as many books as they should. Which is a valid oppinion, but what exactly are books supposed to offer that stories in another medium don't?
I'm quite certain that people who want kids to read more don't include comics and graphic novels into this, and most certainly not TV shows or story heavy video games.

Since I ask this question this way, my own oppion is obviously nothing, but if written text only media in novel format are supposed to be better, for what reasons would they be?

[Kato]

While I would not entirely support the point I'd assume that reading a book still is much more rewarding to ones reading/language skills than other media containing written words. At least that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

[Eldan]

They don't require electrical power, they smell good, I can stack them against walls or in bookshelves (thus saving any money on actually decorating my walls, and they look better anyway) and a few other reasons like that.

But I think what matters to me is pacing and portability. I can open up a book and read a few pages at any time, anywhere. I always have a book or two in my coat pockets.

[Radar]

While I would not entirely support the point I'd assume that reading a book still is much more rewarding to ones reading/language skills than other media containing written words. At least that's the first thing that comes to my mind.
This is the most important argument. As it is, writing and reading skills are very important in our lives and among storytelling formats books train them the most. They can improve grammar and vocabulary as long as the writers and correctors have done their work properly. TV shows or graphic novels also contain words, but aren't as reliant on them, so there is not as much preassure to write the dialogs as well as you need for a novel.

Apart from that: "Back in my days, we didn't have those fancy things, which became popular recently and we liked it!" or "Those [insert any fancy new entertainment form] will rott your mind!". :smalltongue:

@Eldan
Have you considered an e-reader? It's not the same as a real paperback, but it's immensly useful considering the size, weight and capacity. Plus, many old books are currently public content and as such are available for free in digital format thanks to many Internet libraries.

[Man on Fire]

So some people complain, and probably did so for many generations, that young people don't read as many books as they should. Which is a valid oppinion, but what exactly are books supposed to offer that stories in another medium don't?
I'm quite certain that people who want kids to read more don't include comics and graphic novels into this, and most certainly not TV shows or story heavy video games.

Since I ask this question this way, my own oppion is obviously nothing, but if written text only media in novel format are supposed to be better, for what reasons would they be?

Books make you imagine things yourself, movies and comics give you pictures. You see the story through somebody's else imagination, instead of creating the pictures in your head yourself.

imagination is most important thing in the world, without it we have no initiative, creativity, dreams, ambitions and plans to achieve, without it we're simply drones who do as they're told.

[LaZodiac]

The BELIEF, anyway, of those thought is that books, being written word without pictures, is one of the best ways to cultivate inteligence (since it is required, in some capacity, to be inteligent to read) and to cultivate imagination (because your imagination puts the words you read into animation). Thus, it'd be better then TV and movies and games because those mediums give you visuals, and gives you (more often then not) voices to the words.

In practice, I feel that this is completely incorrect, and hold the belief that books are NOT better then other things, in that "all things are great".

[Eldan]

@Eldan
Have you considered an e-reader? It's not the same as a real paperback, but it's immensly useful considering the size, weight and capacity. Plus, many old books are currently public content and as such are available for free in digital format thanks to many Internet libraries.

No. Hate the things. No weight, no size, no pretty cover pictures to decorate walls with and no smell of old paper. My favourite smell. And I don't find them much more portable than a small paperback anyway.

[Traab]

Personal opinion.

[snoopy13a]

Ironically, novels weren't considered serious, high-brow works when they first appeared.

[Kato]

Books make you imagine things yourself, movies and comics give you pictures. You see the story through somebody's else imagination, instead of creating the pictures in your head yourself.

imagination is most important thing in the world, without it we have no initiative, creativity, dreams, ambitions and plans to achieve, without it we're simply drones who do as they're told.

You could still be called out on audio dramas. Which serve the imagination part. And while not saying books don't train your imagination, more interactive media, like video games (there, I said it) which require you to actually do something and come up with strategies or whatever if they are sufficiently challenging are a much better training for your overall cognitive abilities than just reading and imagining the pretty landscape.
Don't get me wrong, I like books but there are things books are good at and things other media are good at.

[Yora]

While I would not entirely support the point I'd assume that reading a book still is much more rewarding to ones reading/language skills than other media containing written words. At least that's the first thing that comes to my mind.
Okay, that's an argument I can buy. Reading books does improve a kids reading skill and people who don't read any books at all might probably be less skilled at writing.
I think I got most of my english skills from reading novels in english, but that was before the internet, which in my case is almost entirely reading english texts. But I wonder if people who are not good at reading actually get into it because of good novels, or if you have to be good at it to actually have any fun with them. However, I've heard of a couple of quite young kids who really started reading with Harry Potter, and even some older ones who pretty much learned reading english novels because they didn't want to wait for the translation. And I think even my aunt read them, though she's one of those people who usually don't read books. So there might be something to it.

[Man on Fire]

You could still be called out on audio dramas. Which serve the imagination part. And while not saying books don't train your imagination, more interactive media, like video games (there, I said it) which require you to actually do something and come up with strategies or whatever if they are sufficiently challenging are a much better training for your overall cognitive abilities than just reading and imagining the pretty landscape.
Don't get me wrong, I like books but there are things books are good at and things other media are good at.

training cognitive skills =/= training imagination.
And audiobooks are still books, ask any librarian - e-books and audiobooks are still books, just in different format.


No. Hate the things. No weight, no size, no pretty cover pictures to decorate walls with and no smell of old paper. My favourite smell. And I don't find them much more portable than a small paperback anyway.

Same here.


In practice, I feel that this is completely incorrect, and hold the belief that books are NOT better then other things, in that "all things are great".

I'm not saying that movies, comics or games are worse than books, they all have their merit. I however belive that they can train different cognitive abilities than books - none of them will train our imagination in the same way books does, but books won't improve skills video games make you use.

[Bulldog Psion]

They're all good, but books really give your imagination the chance to roam. As Tolkien pointed out, they're more interactive than film.

Also, there's a lot more complexity of thoughts and ideas possible in a book. You can't have walls of text exploring complex ideas constantly in a graphic novel, for example; there are going to be far fewer words, and thus less opportunity for deep, complicated concepts to be expressed.

Finally, they will still be readable 100 years hence. Considering that many programs no longer run 10 years after being made, I wouldn't count on electronic storage as a permanent or even semi-permanent way to keep information available.

Note that I'm not saying that e-books, graphic novels, or video games are bad. I'm just saying that books also have continuing merit and have features that can't be replicated in other formats, just as they cannot replicate some features of the other media.

[Selrahc]

Books are a very discursive media form. Given that any book is going to take several hours at least, and probably days to weeks to read, authors can take tangential discussions or address issues that would be hard to do in a more time critical format like a movie, play, audio drama or a TV show. Books are longform, so they can be more thorough.

Books also have the advantage that they've been around for a long time, and had some very talented people working on them over hundreds of years. The novel is a developed format, and there is a rich tableau of available material you can select. When you compare it to a form like Graphic Novels or Video Games especially, then you really have the advantage. The low barriers to production also help. Anybody can try their hands at writing a book, something that can't really be said about most other forms of storytelling.

[Man on Fire]

Another advantage of books is that you really can do anything there. Movies, tv shows and video games have limited budget and so may not have enough money to do creator's vision justice. Comics books also have their laws regarding what and how to show things (for example, it's general rule of thumb characters should have simple designs - putting a character with complex desing on multiple panels per page is horrible amount of work), nto to mention the artist may flat out refuse to draw something (see Alex Ross refusing to draw gay characters) and may often want bigger creative control over the story (see founding fathers of Image). With books the only currency is your skill and imagination, your only limits are the one you set for yourself. That's something no visual medium can give you.

[Gavinfoxx]

I want to get perfumes for my Kindle.

"New Book Smell"

"Old Book Smell"

I think at least one of the two might exist...

Okay. "New Book Smell Aerosol" I think is a non-existing joke product, but there is a "Paper Passion" perfume that does exist. =D

[Elderand]

Nothing makes book better.
And nothing make one format (dead tree, or flashy pixels) inherently superior to the other.

Books can tell a story in more details and take longer to set things up.
Visual mediums tend to resonate with people more (we are primarly viual creatures)
Games are more involving and interactive.

It's foolish to say one is better than the other. They work differently, have different function. Saying one is better than the other is like saying apples are better than bananas. It's nonsense to say that, it's all a matter of taste.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Whacking someone over the head with a Kindle is very likely to damage the Kindle.

[Radar]

Finally, they will still be readable 100 years hence. Considering that many programs no longer run 10 years after being made, I wouldn't count on electronic storage as a permanent or even semi-permanent way to keep information available.
If you are talking about singular books, then it's not as certain - it depends heavily on the paper production technique. Books from the XIX century and newer are actually quite fragile and degrade quickly due to acidity of the paper. Yes, there are kinds of paper, that should last a 1000 years, but it's not used for everything.

As for electronic storage devices, they aren't as reliable as single units, but they allow one to build a multiple redundancy system, which can last without accumulating errors.

[Man on Fire]

Nothing makes book better.
And nothing make one format (dead tree, or flashy pixels) inherently superior to the other.

Books can tell a story in more details and take longer to set things up.
Visual mediums tend to resonate with people more (we are primarly viual creatures)
Games are more involving and interactive.

It's foolish to say one is better than the other. They work differently, have different function. Saying one is better than the other is like saying apples are better than bananas. It's nonsense to say that, it's all a matter of taste.

Examples you provided don't make these things equal. They make each better at different things, that's nto the same.

[Elderand]

Good thing I wasn't trying to imply that then

[Kato]

Whacking someone over the head with a Kindle is very likely to damage the Kindle.

Another use for a book :smallbiggrin: Try doing that woth your desktop. But I guess a notebook works.


Just to clarify, Yora, was your inquiry about how a book is better suited to eduacte children (or help with their development, whatever) or what are general advantages of precisely books over other media?

[Dave Halfbreed]

You can carry them around easily unlike a computer or television, they're not expensive like a portable device, and all you need are your hands and your eyes.

[Toastkart]

As others have said, there's a component of building better grammar/language skills, and of more actively engaging the imagination.

That being said, I think there's something else at work as well. Content. When people pull off the 'kids should read more books' line, they don't just mean any books. They mean the books that they read, or that they approve of. It's a form of social indoctrination. It's a harkening back to the 'good old days' that weren't nearly as good as they are remembered to be.

[gooddragon1]

I have no patience for books anymore. It's nice that they are in a format where you can read them without power but the only books I look at occasionally are my D&D 3.5 core books.

[Weezer]

For me the biggest difference is that books can convey a complexity of message far better than any other medium I can think of. Largely this is due to length, when you have 300-800 pages to work with, you can deeply explore the nuances of whatever message or story you want to tell (and that's not even getting into series), whereas something like film is restricted to a practical length of 3 hours. The message is not entirely divorced from the medium, and I feel that books are best suited for treatement of complex subjects. However, the rise of long form, high quality, in depth TV shows/miniseries, as exemplified by The Wire, Band of Brothers and (to a far lesser extent) Game of Thrones challenges the idea that only books can reach a truly complex level.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Books or rather the written word is the simplest and densest way to convey ideas. There are the fewest inherent budget and technical limitations in the medium. It remains unrivaled in conveyance of abstraction and information. In particular it is the only way to really put someone in the character's own head.

Humanity is a language oriented species, it is our knowledge and to a strong degree our minds. This cannot be practically replaced.

Books are not superior in every way nessecarily. For say clothing they need a paragraph to do what a simple glance will do in a visual medium. A sound is always a sound audibly, but can be difficult to describe in words. However its easier to write a thousand man army then to image it on page or film, and raw facts cannot be conveyed anywhere near as efficiently without resorting to audible text called exposition. Subjectively speaking any of this may render a particular media better depending on the person.

Also why are people having a debate on the format of books. E-reader, paperback, hardcover, or otherwise its all the same thing. And audio books are the fraternal twin sibling.

[Gnoman]

If you are talking about singular books, then it's not as certain - it depends heavily on the paper production technique. Books from the XIX century and newer are actually quite fragile and degrade quickly due to acidity of the paper. Yes, there are kinds of paper, that should last a 1000 years, but it's not used for everything.


You'd be surprised at how durable they actually are. I've handled books from the 1840s that were in better shape than most books from the 1980s. Nothing unusual about the paper or storage method, either. They were just cheap hardcover readers from some school storage closet. The paper had turned dark brown over the last century, but there was little brittleness.

[Trog]

Each medium has its pros and cons. Film/TV conveys the most accurate to real life visual representation of a thing, a photo the next, painting/drawing after that, a spoken/gestured description perhaps next and the written word last or so. Which is why different people often have radically different ideas of what something looks like even though they all read the same words describing it. So there's some things books fall behind on, certainly.

But for describing complex abstract ideas text is probably the best form, beating out fleeting verbal descriptions, usually. Thus text has been the primary method of recording knowledge and information for centuries. I mean if I mimed out this post or made a painting of it it certainly wouldn't have conveyed my message as well. Nor would it if I spoke it aloud because I had time to compose this until it was just how I wanted it and my verbal response would have been far different. Unless I read what I had already wrote aloud afterwards in which case an extra layer of information would be conveyed by the tone of my voice I suppose.

[Winter_Wolf]

I love books, but only as physical media. I detest reading large amounts of text on a monitor, and while I'm pretty interested in giving e-readers a shot, if they end up giving me headaches and eye strain in the same way that monitors do, I'll probably prefer the books more. Plus, there's the feel of the book; the smell of the book, which is different for different countries and also between newsprint, "regular" paper, glossy paper, and magazines; the sound of the paper. I consider books and almost complete experience (they taste terrible!) that I don't get with other media. I have a predilection for paper

Now as to why people complain about "people aren't reading as much as they used to", I'd say the complaint is more about "people aren't engaging their brains as much as they used to". It's probably a view based on seeing people watching things like game shows, reality television, or some other crap. I consider that significantly less valid a view when the books are all trashy novels and the television is all documentaries and science shows. It happens. It's also worth pointing out that reading garbage is in no way better than watching it.

The problem is that people only ever see a part of other people's lives. I love watching crap TV shows, as long as they can give me a laugh. I read voraciously, and enjoy such things as science texts, history, foreign languages, and I'll even attempt to understand mathematics. But no one sees me doing any of those things, because I tend to do them innocuously; I feel no need to draw attention to my reading. If I laugh, well that's an aural clue to something, and if people look up and see some ridiculous mindless crap on tv, they draw an assumption. I simply do not laugh out loud in the same way when I'm reading viking poetic epics.

[Gavinfoxx]

if they end up giving me headaches and eye strain in the same way that monitors do, I'll probably prefer the books more.

You want the e-ink ones that aren't backlit only then, and using an external light source. Nothing that looks like the display on a tablet.

[erikun]

The biggest points that others have mentioned are the literary involvement and necessity of imagination to envision a scene. Even moreso than audio books, you need to be familiar with the language to understand what is going on (you can get a sense of the scene by just hearing someone describe it) and to get a good idea of what is happening.

One thing that has been touched on by a few people: timing, or lack thereof. Books are not a timed medium, by which I mean that evens do not happen as a specific rate per paragraph or page. In something like a film, a setting takes a specific amount of time on-screen and the viewers are limited to examining it during that small timeframe (ignoring very scene-breaking rewinds). In a book, a reader can spend as much time going over a scene as they like before continuing. There is also the pacing: a film or animation generally requires characters moving, or panning an environment, or generally focusing on something. For a book, though, space can be spent talking about history or concepts, or looking at the psyche of a character, or going into narrative detail. Such pacing has the danger of producing "talking head" syndrome when used in film, which is why it is frequently avoided.

That doesn't mean books are a superior medium - just that they have different advantages. One advantage that visual mediums (comics, film) has is that, because all characters must be present and must be doing something, you can include seemingly irrelevant or background details without the audience knowing about it. Have you ever seen a film or TV show where a background character from earlier appears later with a more significant role, or where some seemingly trivial action earlier becomes more important later? Such things work in film because it would look strange for there to be no people in the background, or for a person to be standing stock-still during a scene; it is far more natural to have people milling around and moving about. And because of that, having people engage in unusual behaviour (that is later telling) is much easier to disguise, since there isn't really anything they "should" be doing at the time.

Try this in a book, though, and the oddly detailed action becomes a highly visible Chekhov's gun. It is far more tricky to pull it off, and have it appear natural, when most of the descriptions are left for the imagination.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Try this in a book, though, and the oddly detailed action becomes a highly visible Chekhov's gun. It is far more tricky to pull it off, and have it appear natural, when most of the descriptions are left for the imagination.

That's not entirely true. I've seen plenty of cases where some innocuous bit of description can become important foreshadowing for a later event.

Only if your description is spectacularly sparse do you not have a forest to hide a white tree in. Much like any visual medium most people won't really absorb the full complete text of anything. Not on the first go anyways. And say mentioning a characters name doesn't automatically think they will move from a random tertiary character to an important secondary character at a later point in the story.

[Remmirath]

There are many reasons that I personally prefer books over other storytelling mediums, but even so I am not sure they are ultimately better.

I like to sit in my room or outdoors if it's nice and read a book, and I wouldn't be able to watch a movie or play most games in either location. I also like the ease of pausing while reading a book, and the portability of them; I usually have a book or two with me just in case. I also read fast enough that I will get a lot more in terms of story from reading for one hour than I would from watching an hour of a TV show or movie.

Mostly I prefer to imagine things as I read them rather than watch them on a screen. I couldn't say exactly why, but there's something significantly more enjoyable about seeing things unfold in my mind's eye as I read than watching on a screen for me.

Those are, however, all matters of preference.

The only thing I can think of that is definitely beneficial about reading over other means of storytelling is that it does improve language skills more than stories in other mediums. When you aren't very good at reading yet you can read the sentence over again until you understand it, and it's easier to figure words out from context when you're looking at them than hearing them. Hearing new words also, at least in English, tells one little about how to spell them even if you have figured out what they mean.

[Forum Explorer]

No. Hate the things. No weight, no size, no pretty cover pictures to decorate walls with and no smell of old paper. My favourite smell. And I don't find them much more portable than a small paperback anyway.

Preach it! :smallbiggrin:

Also I like not having to charge them.


Books tend to have the advantage of space to do stuff in. A movie or show has to have a certain amount of space set aside and can't really expand that. While books can take as much space as they need.

Also Books allow you to literally be in the head of a character which makes or breaks some stories. Or being able to change PoV easily.

I think those two are why people will say that the book is better then the movie. The loss of the extra details and the conversion of the viewpoint is generally what gets it for me at least.

Video Games suffer from gameplay-story segeration. Even the best games can struggle with this.

[huttj509]

As to something being missed in the description...I was rereading The Hobbit recently, and I could NOT find when Bilbo picked up the ring and put it in his pocket. It was one line in the middle of other stuff that I glossed over, even when specifically looking for it. And that's a pretty significant plot item.

[Radar]

You'd be surprised at how durable they actually are. I've handled books from the 1840s that were in better shape than most books from the 1980s. Nothing unusual about the paper or storage method, either. They were just cheap hardcover readers from some school storage closet. The paper had turned dark brown over the last century, but there was little brittleness.
So the books you've handled were printed right before the introduction of wood-pulp paper, which was invented about the same time. Now that I read about it, I was off with the timing, since such paper gained popularity in late XIX century.

[Poison_Fish]

I suppose my first thought is that the medium is the message in a Marshall Mclaughlin sense. The activity of reading a book represents an individual time commitment, with a wider range of location then say, accessing my electronic devices (Ignoring for a moment that I have my laptop as well). As opposed to other media in the form of a television show, the pace is more in my own control. The medium of the book means I rely upon less visual and auditory stimulation while enjoying a story. This makes it easier to spur my own imagination, which is a different experience for a story then watching a show with many aspects already defined.

I'm not going to make a statement that there is a better when it comes to consuming media. That falls to individual preference. Just for me, reading a book represents a different activity then watching a show or playing a game. I prefer a physical book as well, since reading page after page of electronic writing just reminds me to much of my time as a researcher going through electronic journals (much cheaper, more accessible, less cluttered library, not to knock library's).

[Raimun]

Nothing. I'm not saying books aren't great, because they really are. I'm saying books have a longer history than tv-shows, movies and videogames so it stands to reason they have a more established position. This might change or the other mediums will catch up. Who knows?

On a related note, there's only one thing I don't like about the books as a storytelling medium. That's descriptions of scenery.

Let's say there's an important conversation between two characters that takes place inside a room. There's a carpet, a few chairs, a table, some paintings and so on. Sometimes writers spend a lot of page space just descibing all this in detail. In written form, this will be a long time you spend, that has little to do with the story that really matters.
Would the story be any different if there was an extra chair? Or if the carpet is actually different color? More often than not, it makes no difference. After the scene changes or characters leave the room, these facts most often cease to matter.
Sure, they set the mood and so on but other mediums like movies and comics manage to set the mood with just a glance. After that, they can focus on the dialog and tell the part of the story that you will remember for rest of your life. One picture truly tells a thousand words.

I mean, does anyone remember descriptions of scenery by heart?

[Flickerdart]

Books have two useful features.

1) They teach you all sorts of words that TV and such simply doesn't, and you can put it down and look up the word if you don't know what it means.

2) They teach you that two spaces after a period is a foolish mistake reserved for typewriter-era fossils.

More people need to read books.

[Bulldog Psion]

If you are talking about singular books, then it's not as certain - it depends heavily on the paper production technique. Books from the XIX century and newer are actually quite fragile and degrade quickly due to acidity of the paper. Yes, there are kinds of paper, that should last a 1000 years, but it's not used for everything.

As for electronic storage devices, they aren't as reliable as single units, but they allow one to build a multiple redundancy system, which can last without accumulating errors.

Yes, that's true. But I still have stacks of novels that my mom bought as a teenager about 50 years ago, and which she gave to me when I was a teenager. They're still totally intact other than slight yellowing.

Dover Books has been printing books on acid-free paper for years. Acid-free paper is pretty common now, even readily available for desktop printers. So some books will crumble, but not all of them. And even the ones that will, I expect will last at least 70 or 80 years.

That's a lot longer than any hard disk or CD that I'd care to put my faith in.

[dehro]

I mean, does anyone remember descriptions of scenery by heart?

in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. not a nasty dirty wet hole filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell...[...] it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort.

so.. yeah.. I do.

That said, I'll list the reasons why books are, to me, a more important medium than others.
1) Literacy. If I hadn't read as much as I have, my school career would have been severely affected. not having much of a head or passion for numbers, books, reading and writing (which go hand in hand) became my main source of good grades. I still read a lot in English, more so than I get a chance to watch movies in English. This is the primary means for me to keep my language skills in use.
2) Immagination. Adding my own mental pictures, voices, characterisations and details to a scene depicted in words rather than presented visually has meant that I've always developed a strong sense of creation and it has fuelled my immagination and mental agility.
3) Education as a whole. I find that reading, as much as writing (and again, the latter doesn't really happen much without the training that reading brings), fosters mental acuity and a capacity for logic, memorisation and making connections that is stronger than what it would be if the only medium of interest was movies or videogames.
as an example of this, there's a running gag in my family whereby my dad's wife and their daughter both need (in my opinion) explanatory subtitles when they watch a movie... or they wouldn't ask the moronic questions they do ask about the plot or particular scenes as they are watching them. Neither of them read much, if at all. The twin brother to the girl is somewhat more bookish and doesn't seem to require explanations on simple plotlines (or complicated ones). Aside from the opportunity to make fun of my sister and her mother this situation represents, if I were to really look at it seriously, I'd say it's a case of mental lazyness. Being used to mostly watch movies or tv shows rather than reading and "filling the gaps with their immagination and minds" lowers their attention span and level of.. intake of information.
Mind you, I might just see too much into this and it is entirely possible that my sister and her mum are just dumb as a pair of bricks :smallamused:
On a personal note, I find that the content of a book tends to stay with me for longer than that of a movie or TV show... but this is entirely subjective and not always true either.
4) Voices looks and finer details of the characters.
Aragorn is magnificently played by Viggo Mortensen and his casting was an exceptional choice. That said, I prefer the somewhat "more than human" version of the character that has been in my head up until I watched the movies... and there's considerable more "power" in his voice than there is in the voice of Viggo Mortensen.
And what happens in case of a mis-cast or when the video version of a character is wildly different from the one in my mind? As much as I like Dinklage as an actor and I'm sure his performance is top notch, I just don't see him as Tyrion Lannister.
Giving a character my personal take on the finer details that "make" him is something that is dear to me and, despite me not actually making a conscious effort to "do funny voices" or flesh out the characters as more than what they look like on the page, in my head they possess enough definition for me to become.. intimately familiar with them.
This is also a reason why I never liked to read stories to my assorted brothers and sisters... I don't do voices, and having all the caracters use my voice kind of spoils and flattens the whole tale.
Audiobooks are clearly the work of the Devil and should be burned in big flaming piles, using lots of petrol just to make sure.
Jokes aside, I just don't like 'em.
5) Pacing. I can put a book down and take a break without it disrupting the entire experience as much as it does when you put a movie on pause.
I can re-read a page I found particularly compelling, or complicated, without losing the momentum or having to fiddle with the remote and watch stuff happen backwards at great speed. I can slow down or accellerate my reading pace according to the intensity or complexity of the scene I'm reading, whereas in other media this is determined by whoever put the scene together.
I can regulate the very experience of reading a book by making it last as long as I want, despite me being usually a fast reader by default. If a movie is 2 hours long, it's going to take me 2 hours to watch it, no matter how much I break it up and watch it bit by bit in different days. Doing so would ruin the whole experience. If however I particularly like a book, I can just read at a slower pace and savour it for a longer time.
6) Empathy. As much as I can identify with, empathize with, get passionate about or appreciate characters in movies or even comics, they are "there" and much less "in my head" than those I read about in novels. A character I have given a voice, facial features or "presence" to is much closer to my heart than one where these details are handed to me on a platter, through someone else's eyes. Ultimately I care more about them.
7) The creepy reasons. The smell of a book, the sensation of rifling through the pages and the weight of a book in your hand is a completely different sensation to that of watching a movie. Not necessarily a better one, but one that I like better.
8) The can. Nobody looks at you like you're a weirdo if you take a book with you to the toilet. People tend to stare if you tell them you're taking your laptop with you because you want to keep watching the movie as you poop. Also, it's much more unconfortable to do. I tried.
It's also harder to electrocute yourself by taking a book in the bathtub than it is by taking your laptop with you. (not that that's ever stopped me from doing the latter)
Growing up at times with 4-5 women in the house, I treasured my alone time with a book on the toilet.

I love a number of TV shows and movies, love a number of cartoons and comics and am quite into certain franchises in all kinds of media, but books hold a bigger place in my heart than any other, including music.

[Gnoman]

So the books you've handled were printed right before the introduction of wood-pulp paper, which was invented about the same time. Now that I read about it, I was off with the timing, since such paper gained popularity in late XIX century.

For what it's worth, I've seen the same with books of every decade. I too was under the impression that wood pulp paper was in common use at that time.

[Hazzardevil]

Ironically, novels weren't considered serious, high-brow works when they first appeared.
What was popular before books? The only thing I know was scrolls came before, but they had the problem of if you stopped before you finished it was hard to find your place again and when books were invented they were called codexes.
Source: AD 33 by Colin Duriez.


You can carry them around easily unlike a computer or television, they're not expensive like a portable device, and all you need are your hands and your eyes.

Take a look at the cost of books in book shops and tell me £20 is cheap.
In the long run a portable device like a kindle is cheaper, you can buy a book on there for £6-8 and then you'll be better off on the 20th book or so.

[dehro]

What was popular before books?

oral transmission? but I do believe he was talking about novels as opposed to a more serious content such as History, Phylosophy and such.

[Selrahc]

What was popular before books?


Having no leisure time due to backbreaking subsistence labour, and then dying at 30 (Or alternatively, oral traditions). Among the upper classes. dedicated entertainers.

Novels are relatively new compared to books though. Novels only started to come about as a general form in the 18th and 19th century. Taking up their niche *immediately* before hand would be pamphlets, circulars and factual books.



Take a look at the cost of books in book shops and tell me £20 is cheap.
In the long run a portable device like a kindle is cheaper, you can buy a book on there for £6-8 and then you'll be better off on the 20th book or so.

If all you buy is new books from book shops? Sure.

But uh... even there. £20 is going to be the price of a brand new hardcover. So you're just talking about brand new releases. Paperbacks are in the region of £6-13, often with a deal on for buying 2 at the same time.

If you don't particularly care about getting a brand new book? Going to charity shops or car boot sales and you can buy books for 50p-£2. Second hand book shops will probably cost you around £2-5 for a paperback. Maybe around £8-10 for a hardback.

E-books are probably a bit more economical in the long run. But not really very much so unless you're after new releases.

[Gavinfoxx]

and then dying at 30

Actually, people didn't die that young throughout history... there were always people who got relatively old (60s, etc.)... the myth is that in [x bad period of history], no one got to be old, which really isnt the case...

[T-O-E]

Yeah, it's skewed because of the extremely high infant mortality rate. If you survived to the age of say, 5, or into adulthood, you could look forward to your 60's or 70's. Hell, Socrates lived to 70 and he was put to death. King Lear was an octogenarian so it seems to me that someone of that age would have been familiar to people in the 16th century.

[Selrahc]

Actually, people didn't die that young throughout history... there were always people who got relatively old (60s, etc.)... the myth is that in [x bad period of history], no one got to be old, which really isnt the case...

People did die that young. They just didn't *all* die that young.

The biggest thing skewing the life expectancy into the high 20s/low 30s for most of history was an abominable infant mortality rate. But the adult mortality rate wasn't great either. Childbirth killed vast swathes of the female population, while infections from wounds decimated males(and females). Life expectancy at 10 was still only about 40. Life expectancy at 20 was still only 45.

I did, of course, simplify the picture.

[SmartAlec]

They're quiet. Oh, god, they're quiet. You can read in a crowded place and it irritates no-one.

[Gavinfoxx]

They're quiet. Oh, god, they're quiet. You can read in a crowded place and it irritates no-one.

So is anything with a headphone out, where you plug in a set of canalphone style closed earphones...

[SmartAlec]

So is anything with a headphone out, where you plug in a set of canalphone style closed earphones...

Find a way to guarantee that people use that specific type of earphone, and I'll happily grant that point.

Doesn't seem like many people do. Damn Apple brand earphones.

[Gavinfoxx]

Doesn't seem like many people do. Damn Apple brand earphones.

Apple's current headphones are closed canalphones, I believe.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/in-ear-headphones/

[SmartAlec]

Apple's current headphones are closed canalphones, I believe.

http://www.apple.com/ipod/in-ear-headphones/

Then what are you waiting for? Go, get to work, sir. For the good of us all.

[Gavinfoxx]

Then what are you waiting for? Go, get to work, sir. For the good of us all.

Hey, I point people at useful canalphones ALL THE TIME! I have read this thread, I'll have you know:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/478568/multi-iem-review-267-iems-compared-fitear-to-go-334-added-12-16-12

[dehro]

I can't stand them, myself.. for one thing they fall out all the time because I was stung by a wasp on the inside of my right ear (I don't hear that well from that side, due both to the wasp and frequent ear infections as a kid).. second, after a while (hours) my ears actually tingle and get hot/unconfortable. give me something less.. invasive, any day.

then again, audiobooks are the work of the devil and should be burned in great big piles of fire... so you won't catch me with one of them anytime soon.

[Gavinfoxx]

I can't stand them, myself.. for one thing they fall out all the time

Look at the photos in that thread... there is a huuuuge amount of variety in shapes and sizes and materials and such...

[Winter_Wolf]

I will never use a pair of canalphones. Never. Apparently my ear canals aren't shaped for them, 'cause they freaking HURT to have in for more than one-two minutes.

There was a pair of cover-the-whole-ear headphones at the market which sounded GREAT. They were fairly expensive, though. I think it might have been some Skull Candy ones, but I can't remember for sure. I do know the midprice ones were a LOT better than the higher priced ones, and better than Bose headphones. I suspect Bose is more about marketing hype, I've never been all that impressed by 'em.

But I sure wouldn't use 'em for audio books. They always seem to get the most inappropriate voice over people for those.

I tell you what, though, I've never had a book run out of battery life on me. Unlike my PSP, cd player, walk man, mp3 player, MD player, cell phone, or any other portable electronics. Can't read and drive, though. At least not if you want to be safe.

But as I live in a world of voluntary silence most of the time, music players and head phone are of very limited use to me compared to visual media.

[Gavinfoxx]

I will never use a pair of canalphones. Never. Apparently my ear canals aren't shaped for them, 'cause they freaking HURT to have in for more than one-two minutes.


You know that there are canalphones for which you go to an audiologist, they take molds of your ears, and then you send them off to the company that makes the canalphones, and they make a custom canalphones specifically to the shape of your ear canals, right? And just because every canalphone that you have tried thus far hurts, doesn't mean that ALL of them would hurt, in all cases... and you know that many come with a huuuge variety of gel and foam inserts of different sizes and shapes?

[Winter_Wolf]

You know that there are canalphones for which you go to an audiologist, they take molds of your ears, and then you send them off to the company that makes the canalphones, and they make a custom canalphones specifically to the shape of your ear canals, right? And just because every canalphone that you have tried thus far hurts, doesn't mean that ALL of them would hurt, in all cases... and you know that many come with a huuuge variety of gel and foam inserts of different sizes and shapes?

I did not know that, actually. But let me ask you this: would it be cheaper to do that or to just buy a pair that fit over the ears? By which I mean those things that cup the ears and have a foam pad that forms a pretty tight seal against the skull.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, large circumaural / heavy duty / tightly squeezing / closed headphones (ie, all of that to get isolation) DO get you plenty of isolation. Not as much as an IEM can get, of course, and it squeezes your head like a vice, but they DO isolate a lot. Ultimately, I would suggest that you go to that thread and read about the differences in ergonomics and fit and comfort of IEMs at different pricepoints.... and there are quality iem and larger closed, heavily isolating headphones at lot of different pricepoints! Go ask on head-fi.org for your particular needs.

[Forum Explorer]

Well, large circumaural / heavy duty / tightly squeezing / closed headphones (ie, all of that to get isolation) DO get you plenty of isolation. Not as much as an IEM can get, of course, and it squeezes your head like a vice, but they DO isolate a lot. Ultimately, I would suggest that you go to that thread and read about the differences in ergonomics and fit and comfort of IEMs at different pricepoints.... and there are quality iem and larger closed, heavily isolating headphones at lot of different pricepoints! Go ask on head-fi.org for your particular needs.

They also keep your ears warm. :smallsmile:

[Gavinfoxx]

They also keep your ears warm. :smallsmile:

So does a set of $2 earmuffs over iem's.

[Forum Explorer]

So does a set of $2 earmuffs over iem's.

Yeah but that's a whole extra 2$ and an extra piece of clothing to keep track of. Paticularly when someone is trying to talk to me and I have to take the iem out as well as the earmuff.

Also I think the closed headphones are more durable. I know I go through the smaller headphones like crazy.

[Gavinfoxx]

Also I think the closed headphones are more durable. I know I go through the smaller headphones like crazy.

Were any of your IEM's -- if you have used iem's -- ones that were in that multi-iem review, and also had the tag 'build quality (5/5)' or 'build quality (4.5/5)'?

Also most IEM's are technically closed, in headphone parlance. Closed refers to closed-back, a part of the construction at the FAR side of the driver (ie, if there is a grille you can look into from outside of the headphones and see the back of the driver, or there are vents for the driver. If there are, it isn't closed, it's either open or semi-closed).

[Forum Explorer]

Were any of your IEM's -- if you have used iem's -- ones that were in that multi-iem review, and also had the tag 'build quality (5/5)' or 'build quality (4.5/5)'?

Also most IEM's are technically closed, in headphone parlance. Closed refers to closed-back, a part of the construction at the FAR side of the driver (ie, if there is a grille you can look into from outside of the headphones and see the back of the driver, or there are vents for the driver. If there are, it isn't closed, it's either open or semi-closed).

I have no idea! I think they were IEMs since they had those plastic things but seriously I can't remember what type of car I drive let alone the last type of ear phones I had.

[dehro]

d it squeezes your head like a vice:smallconfused:well.. that's a first!
I've had anything from this kind:
http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/02/66/16/02/0002661602882_150X150.jpg
to these..
http://www.tenqa.com/img/product-HP109-bluetooth-headphones.png
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414B5CNHRML._SL500_AA300_.jpg
or even these
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Philips-headphones.JPG/300px-Philips-headphones.JPG
but the integrity of the shape of my head has never been at risk :smallbiggrin:
the only intracanal ones I can wear without them falling out or having a mold of my ear taken which would cost a ton and is more than I am willing to pay for such a trivial item (and I have no clue where to have such a thing done here in my country) are these
http://www.govgroup.com/images_products/1007210_large.jpg
they cost about 25+ euro, which is pretty much in the middle of the pricerange.. you start finding decent ones for this price. better ones, or maybe just expensive for expensive's sake ones, can be found for double that price or more.
I haven't found/seen them in a while.. I broke my last one several years ago.
am now using this exact model:
http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/05794347000?hei=315&wid=315&op_sharpen=1&resMode=sharp&op_usm=0.9,0.5,0,0
or at least I was until I forgot them at my mum's and my little brother requisitioned them to spend newyears in Munich with.
Am now looking for a new set.

[Gavinfoxx]

I have no idea! I think they were IEMs since they had those plastic things but seriously I can't remember what type of car I drive let alone the last type of ear phones I had.

Well did they feel like earplugs? Or were they those types that were more simple earbuds, like just rested against the ear, near the canal, but didnt plug the canal?

And none of those ergonomics of headphones dehro showed are really highly isolating headphones. You need very particular ergonomics (ie, an iem or what I mentioned re: the vice, with lots of heavy plastic between you and the sounds!) to isolate heavily from loud outside noises.

[dehro]

And none of those ergonomics of headphones dehro showed are really highly isolating headphones.

thing is.. when I'm at home or in the car, I don't use them.. so all that's left is when I'm walking around town or somesuch... in which case I'd rather hear the traffic around me than count on sight alone. it's inconvenient, but safer this way. I'm easy enough to distract from where I'm going as it is.

edit: I'm not even sure that completely blocking your hearing from anything else is a legal thing to do, whilst driving... yet another reason why I don't do it and why I only have a single-ear "phone thing" for my cellphone, in the car.

[Gavinfoxx]

And actually? Price has damn near nothing to do with performance in headphones.

You find great sounding headphones at $15 USD. And crappy at $15 usd..

...same with $40...

...same with $100...

...same with $250...

...same with $350

Headphone buying is knowing exactly which model to get, really. Price/performance ratios are all over the place!

If you want to have a good chance of getting something with a good price/performance ratio at any price point, go for headphones manufactured by german professional microphone companies. Sennheiser, Ultrasone, Beyerdynamic, AKG... Okay, I think some of those might be Austrian, but you get the idea.


Anyway, my biggest headphone recommendations, for cheap headphones, are these:

www.koss.com/en/products/headphones/ear-clip-headphones/KSC75__KSC75_Ear_Clip_Headphones

They don't isolate any at all, and they leak noise (so other people can hear you; sorry!) but you can find them online for like <$15 USD, and they blow things an order of magnitude more expensive (like the Beats) out of the water in sound quality.

[Zarrgon]

Since I ask this question this way, my own oppion is obviously nothing, but if written text only media in novel format are supposed to be better, for what reasons would they be?

Well, some people just like to complain about kids...for the simple reason that the kids are not clones of them. After all, millions of kids worldwide read Harry Potter. But the complainers will still say ''oh that is the wrong type of book as I don't like it.''

Using your imagination is huge though. And that is what I love about books. Simply put, nothing can compare to an imagination.

And, often movies, tv shows and the rest...well, they just get the visuals wrong. Ever seen the wrong actor in a part? Sure, hundreds of times. Ever see a set and think it just does not look right? Yup. Ever see an 'adapted' story and thought it was not right?

[Das Platyvark]

For me, it's about the physicality of the thing. The fact that it's solid and sits in your hand nicely, and that you can understand it. I don't know how my computer works, but I do know exactly how a book works.
What prevents me from moving onto kindle or something like it is that in a book, I can cross-reference. If I think something is harking back to an earlier point in the story, I can just flip back to that page and affirm my suspicion.
I also think that the book has been around so much longer than most other media that it has a much wider reach of what's in it, and a good deal more experimentation with the form than, say, a video game or a movie. There have been works that are truly innovative in both of those examples, but the book is so well established that people are more likely to find ways to reinvent it.

[Gnoman]

For me, it's about the physicality of the thing. The fact that it's solid and sits in your hand nicely, and that you can understand it. I don't know how my computer works, but I do know exactly how a book works.
What prevents me from moving onto kindle or something like it is that in a book, I can cross-reference. If I think something is harking back to an earlier point in the story, I can just flip back to that page and affirm my suspicion.
I also think that the book has been around so much longer than most other media that it has a much wider reach of what's in it, and a good deal more experimentation with the form than, say, a video game or a movie. There have been works that are truly innovative in both of those examples, but the book is so well established that people are more likely to find ways to reinvent it.
Funny, it's the opposite for me. I find it far easier to cross-reference when on a device that has a search function than in a paper book. That's mainly because I can usually remember part of the key phrasing.

[GoddessSune]

I think the big thing about a book is the reader gets to picture and imagine things. And after all Hollywood is so, so, so bad at this.

Take any movie or TV show. Who stars in it? Actors. And actors are the top 10% most attractive people in the world. Yet in Hollywood they pretend like they are normal people.

There are so many examples: Jennifer Lopez as a motel 6 maid, Jennifer Anaston as a waitress, Ryan Renelods as a waiter, or Bruce Willis as a cop. A great example is Rachel(Jennifer Anaston) on Friends who is like a 9 or 10, but she dates the 4 or 5 Ross(David Shwimmer). Though you'd note in real life women that look like Jennifer date guys that look like Brad Pitt.

This gets really noticeable in Sci-fi, as ''Dr. Smith'' will be a super hot babe....who just wears glasses to look Hollywood Nerd Ugly.

And this does not even take into account the stupid PC stuff where a character will switch race or gender.

And then there are comic books...dear god...where every woman is and E cup size and weighs 100 pounds.

[willpell]

The big advantage of books is relative permanence. If our civilization is destroyed and our electricity generation capability is rendered nil (or vice versa; either one would swiftly bring the other), all e-books and the Internet would cease to exist; this wouldn't have to last long before the knowledge of how to access the information even if electrity returned would be lost. Digging up ancient computers wouldn't do future archaeologists any good, because they'd have no way to operate them without knowing exactly how we used them; they couldn't decrypt the code, they couldn't navigate the programs, and the wrong amount of current through a computer chip would melt it. Even if they managed to get some information back, more would be lost. Books on the other hand are artifacts that anyone in any future age can study and understand like we did the Rosetta stone. If we want the future to have any knowledge of the world we've labored to create, we must ensure that a permanent record survives. The ideal would be to make books out of some high-tech metal alloy that never tarnishes and could survive a lava flood unscathed, but the price would be prohibitive; the second-best thing is to cheaply produce paper books by the millions and litter the world with them, so that some are certain to be found.

[Kato]

@ Goddess

While it takes us off-topic again...

Denoting people with numbers based on their attractiveness is an ugly thing even if you just did it to show how superficial society/Hollywood is. (And I wouldn't make Schwimmer a 4 or 5 but whatever)
The thing is, while yes, Hollywood does rarely cast unattractive people, and it is something I dislike saying the a maid or a cop can't be attractive is totally non-sensical. Saying all cops are highly attractive would of course be wrong yet you make it sound like they never can be. (And there are actually people who are not so superficial to only date people who are on the same scale of beauty as themselves. It's common but it's not a law of nature or anything)


And even in books... yeah, you can imagine people as (un)attractive as you like but if there is no clear indication... I tend to think of people as pleasing to look at, why not? If I have to imagine them all the time I'd rather think of something nice than something ugly.
And while we're at it, this also can be something against books since different people will picture people differently and at times this also becomes a matter of argument. (Nonsensical as it is)


@willpell (And while I was writing something else comes up...)
I'd call problems on that one as well. Books don't last forever. Sure, you can preserve them by taking special measures but most stuff printed today will be unreadable in nor even a century. Throw-away-society and stuff.
Electric media isn't perfectly safe but creating electricity is not a big issue and there are permanent ways to store stuff, if we really care. Like including a power source with the proper voltage. And navigating your everyday computer is not really harder than reading a book, once you decypher the language. And a computer has so many advantages over a book.
(Then again, the concern of whether future archaeologists have an easier/harder time getting information from is pretty low in the list of things we should worry about.

[Soras Teva Gee]

@ Goddess

While it takes us off-topic again...

Denoting people with numbers based on their attractiveness is an ugly thing even if you just did it to show how superficial society/Hollywood is. (And I wouldn't make Schwimmer a 4 or 5 but whatever)
The thing is, while yes, Hollywood does rarely cast unattractive people, and it is something I dislike saying the a maid or a cop can't be attractive is totally non-sensical. Saying all cops are highly attractive would of course be wrong yet you make it sound like they never can be. (And there are actually people who are not so superficial to only date people who are on the same scale of beauty as themselves. It's common but it's not a law of nature or anything)


And even in books... yeah, you can imagine people as (un)attractive as you like but if there is no clear indication... I tend to think of people as pleasing to look at, why not? If I have to imagine them all the time I'd rather think of something nice than something ugly.
And while we're at it, this also can be something against books since different people will picture people differently and at times this also becomes a matter of argument. (Nonsensical as it is)

Personally I think this old yarn is a bit overblown. Maybe I just don't have a discriminating eye but I find very few people are actually all that unattractive in a fundamental way.

Or rather in are unattractive in a way that a being physically fit/healthy, wearing cosmetics, and dressing with some thought wouldn't fix. The last two are almost automatic since you get into deliberrate ugliness... leaving only physical fitness.

Which well....

[snoopy13a]

Take any movie or TV show. Who stars in it? Actors. And actors are the top 10% most attractive people in the world. Yet in Hollywood they pretend like they are normal people.

There are so many examples: Jennifer Lopez as a motel 6 maid, Jennifer Anaston as a waitress, Ryan Renelods as a waiter, or Bruce Willis as a cop. A great example is Rachel(Jennifer Anaston) on Friends who is like a 9 or 10, but she dates the 4 or 5 Ross(David Shwimmer). Though you'd note in real life women that look like Jennifer date guys that look like Brad Pitt.



Ross is more like a 6, because he is tall, thin, and has a full head of hair--those traits alone make him above-average. He also has a good job. Rachel is a bit of a reach, but not a totally unrealistic one. Also, poor Jen could be as low as 8. Brad Pitt dumped her for Angelia Jolie, a 10.

Seinfeld is a better example with George, who is a 4 and maybe even a 3 (short, fat, and bald), dating women who are in the 7-8 range. And George doesn't even have the excuse of having a good job.

Hollywood is funny, though. The "unattractive female friend" tends to be an attractive woman who wears glasses.

[dehro]

Hollywood is funny, though. The "unattractive female friend" tends to be an attractive woman who wears glasses.

then you get the ugly duckling thing where the dweeby woman wearing glasses, scruffy hairdo and baggy clothes is given a facial, a new hairdo and stuck in a cocktail dress and suddenly turns out to be catwalk material...which is what happens in those "reality" makeover shows.. where they give some bland woman a makeover...except they never get a seriously ugly woman on the show to begin with. it's always women who just need a bit of pampering to look good.

[Soras Teva Gee]

then you get the ugly duckling thing where the dweeby woman wearing glasses, scruffy hairdo and baggy clothes is given a facial, a new hairdo and stuck in a cocktail dress and suddenly turns out to be catwalk material...which is what happens in those "reality" makeover shows.. where they give some bland woman a makeover...except they never get a seriously ugly woman on the show to begin with. it's always women who just need a bit of pampering to look good.

On the other hand let me ask you though what makes a woman "seriously ugly" that isn't strictly correctable. Major scaring and some really unfortunate bone structure are all that come to mind for me.

Which are well... not that common.

Not that the whole dumpy glasses thing is entirely blameless. I would like more "ugly" people to keep the eye wear.

[dehro]

On the other hand let me ask you though what makes a woman "seriously ugly" that isn't strictly correctable. Major scaring and some really unfortunate bone structure are all that come to mind for me.

Which are well... not that common.

Not that the whole dumpy glasses thing is entirely blameless. I would like more "ugly" people to keep the eye wear.

I tend to find something worthy of positive notice in most women, and have rarely met girls that were just irredeemably ugly.. but there are plenty of women out there (all you need to do is to walk around in a mall to find a few) who you just can't "make-over" in a few hours in a beauty parlour... who'd need some serious dieting/lipostuff/fitness training/skin treatment/dental hygiene etc etc, before they could ever come close to the stunners they usually turn out to be in these movies and/or tv shows.

you mention unfortunate bone structure.. I have yet to see one woman in one of these movies or makeover shows that had this kind of issue.
Well.. issue is the closest word I can find.. if the woman is confortable in her skin it won't be an issue to her.. I'm talking about the shallow standard of what is commonly accepted as beauty, for the purpose of this subject. Even these so called positive programmes who are geared to empower the "chosen person".. they do so, I'm sure.. but don't they also, by virtue of who they select for the show, confirm that a modicum of..shapelyness/proportioned features/gracefulness is still needed? the world is full of women who walk and/or waddle around like they've crapped their pants or find pleasure into things, utterly deprived of grace and "presence".. yet they never seem to be selected to appear on those shows, or in those roles in movies.

[Kato]

Ah, it's not like it's not my fault but we are getting off-topic again :smallbiggrin:


I have to admit... I'm pretty superficial. While there are a lot of people I'll admit can be easily helped out with a make over I still think there is quite an amount of people who just have unfortunate bone structure, or whatever you want to call it. They're not hideous ugly but unattactive enough that I wouldn't feel attracted to them no matter what you might do to them short of plastic surgery. Of course there is personal preference to factor in (and age) but even in my age range I'd guess I'm only attracted to fifty percent of people or so, everyone else I just don't think of as attractive for one reason or another. (In visual media the percentage is much higher, obviously)

[dehro]

yeah..totally off topic, indeed..

that said, books are better because they are.

[gooddragon1]

And actually? Price has damn near nothing to do with performance in headphones.

You find great sounding headphones at $15 USD. And crappy at $15 usd..

...same with $40...

...same with $100...

...same with $250...

...same with $350

Headphone buying is knowing exactly which model to get, really. Price/performance ratios are all over the place!

If you want to have a good chance of getting something with a good price/performance ratio at any price point, go for headphones manufactured by german professional microphone companies. Sennheiser, Ultrasone, Beyerdynamic, AKG... Okay, I think some of those might be Austrian, but you get the idea.


Anyway, my biggest headphone recommendations, for cheap headphones, are these:

www.koss.com/en/products/headphones/ear-clip-headphones/KSC75__KSC75_Ear_Clip_Headphones

They don't isolate any at all, and they leak noise (so other people can hear you; sorry!) but you can find them online for like <$15 USD, and they blow things an order of magnitude more expensive (like the Beats) out of the water in sound quality.

As long as the produce the sound without making it so everyone else can hear it's good enough for me. Though I prefer full headphones rather than the smaller ones you stick in your ears because those annoy me. I probably use headphones as much as the next guy what with me being a gamer. Of course, the headset talky thingy is a bonus for the games where I can use voice.

[DigoDragon]

The biggest points that others have mentioned are the literary involvement and necessity of imagination to envision a scene.

^Pretty much my reason to still read books. I get more entertainment the more braincells I need to use and books pretty much get my imagination firing on all cylinders. :smallsmile:

I don't mind eReader type devices. Sure it may require power to use, but it's easier to carry a small library of books around digitally.

[Gavinfoxx]

As long as the produce the sound without making it so everyone else can hear it's good enough for me. Though I prefer full headphones rather than the smaller ones you stick in your ears because those annoy me. I probably use headphones as much as the next guy what with me being a gamer. Of course, the headset talky thingy is a bonus for the games where I can use voice.

If you are a gamer, than recommendations are wayyyy more specific; go to head-fi, say you want a closed gaming headphone (to not leak sound to your roommates) and a recommendation for a good microphone to pair with it, and give a budget.

[gooddragon1]

If you are a gamer, than recommendations are wayyyy more specific; go to head-fi, say you want a closed gaming headphone (to not leak sound to your roommates) and a recommendation for a good microphone to pair with it, and give a budget.

Not really. As long as it produces sound and has a mic it's fine. If you're a professional gamer it matters. I'm a casual gamer. Casual like 5 Crystalis and a Phase boots is a build in DotA gamer (lategame 5 buriza, early game 5 blades of attack).

[Gavinfoxx]

You don't want an integrated mic, trust me. It adds like $60-100 to the price of a headphone of equivalent quality, and it's better to get a clip on mic that clips to the headphone for like $15...

[tomandtish]

As many have said, books allow more use of my own imagination. Nothing is more jarring to me then seeing somethign that looks out of place. The biggest problem with the visual formats is the reusing of faces. There are plenty of times where I have a hard time seeing someone has there current character because I'm seeing them as one they played currently. And FAR too many times where someone completely inappropriate for a part was cast because of who they were, not whether they were right for the part.


You could still be called out on audio dramas. Which serve the imagination part. And while not saying books don't train your imagination, more interactive media, like video games (there, I said it) which require you to actually do something and come up with strategies or whatever if they are sufficiently challenging are a much better training for your overall cognitive abilities than just reading and imagining the pretty landscape.
Don't get me wrong, I like books but there are things books are good at and things other media are good at.


training cognitive skills =/= training imagination.
And audiobooks are still books, ask any librarian - e-books and audiobooks are still books, just in different format.


Minor point (since Man on Fire seemed to be responding to Kato): Audio Dramas and Audio Books are not the same thing.

An Audio Drama is basically a play performed over the radio. You get no visuals, usually no description (some provided a limited narration of where a scene might occur), and background noise. The easiest way to describe it: Go see a play with the lights off. My folks and I used to listen to a radio station that still played some old ones when we were in Houston back in the 70s (yes, I dated mayself). They still require imagination.

Audio Books are simply books read aloud and recorded (I'm not aware of any books published ONLY in the audio format).

[Salbazier]

they smell good

This.

Also holding paper in your hand and flipping them feel good as well.

By the way, are we talking about novels or books in general? My own family encourage reading, but any kind written & printed medium is acceptable. The idea is that reading enriching your knowledge (and imagination I guess). Written material, be it fiction, facts, news ect used to be far more common and varied to other forms of media. They still are, even if has already lessened to a great degree.

Personally I don't like audio anything, except a) when accompanied with visul and b) for learning a language. I'm visual person that easily lose concentration when trying to hear a monologue. Plus, unlike books, you can't set your own pace.

[dehro]

I don't know why because it's mostly a gut thing, but I strongly feel that audiobooks just are not books.
yes, there are special dispensations such as parents reading to illiterate children, or blind people who haven't mastered braille or want to read books that aren't available in braille..but that's about it.
anybody else who is listening to an audiobook isn't reading a book.
the experiences are totally different and hardly comparable when you have the option to do both.
the fact that you're gaining access to the same material just doesn't cut it, IMO

[endoperez]

I don't know why because it's mostly a gut thing, but I strongly feel that audiobooks just are not books.
yes, there are special dispensations such as parents reading to illiterate children, or blind people who haven't mastered braille or want to read books that aren't available in braille..but that's about it.
anybody else who is listening to an audiobook isn't reading a book.
the experiences are totally different and hardly comparable when you have the option to do both.
the fact that you're gaining access to the same material just doesn't cut it, IMO

Why do you say the experiences are different? Is it because you can go back more easily in a book, re-read things, or do you think it's just different when you hear the words instead of reading them?

Sounds a bit strange to me.

[Kato]

I'm not trying to make one thing better or worse but books, audio books and audio dramas (yeah, I know the difference, sorry about earlier) are still vastly different media. (e-books versus books not so much... I'm not the romantic who likes the smell of a book, maybe a bit the feel of the paper and other things but for most purposes an e-book and a book are equivalents)
Putting aside the audio dramas audio books compared to books have at the very least one disadvantage: You don't learn to read. Reading is a big thing when it comes to improving your orthography. If you listen to 100 audio books you still won't have learned the difference between "your" and "you're". (Not that you should need a book to do so but you get my point) Sure, you can study and study to learn this but you might as well just read a book and have fun while doing it. An audio book just can't do that.
I'm not saying audio books are inferior. A good reader can make an audio book more enjoyable than a normal book (or less but that's another issue) (I think sometimes they even use background music on audio books? Not regularly, but I think it happens) Audio books can do a lot for a person (and, in opposite to books they can teach you how to properly pronounce something, touché) but a book and an audio book aren't the same thing.

Personally, I prefer books but I don't mind audio books, like when I'm somewhere I can't read. And again, neither is inferior, but it's not the same either. They work differently, they - at some level - serve a different purpose. (Same goes for audio dramas of course)

[endoperez]

Yes, a book will increase your writing skills and an audio book will help your pronunciation. But what makes them "a vastly different media" or make them "work differently"? I've only listened to a few audio books, and besides having been put off by a reader whose voice I didn't like, I don't think there was a big difference.

The only thing I missed was an easy way to go back a few seconds, so I could "re-read" a sentence, but that's an interface thing and could be fixed rather easily. And even only becomes an issue if you do that constantly while reading books - and I don't. I just read the book from the beginning to the end.

I could understand calling them vastly different if someone constantly moved back and forth while reading a book, going back to earlier chapters to check how they compare to current scene...

[Kato]

Okay, maybe "vastly" is a big word but still, calling them the same is just as wrong. We've already collected quite a few things where they differ. There's things books are better at and things audio books are better at, but not every good book works as an audio book and I'd assume there are some more exotic ways to make an audio book that can not be easily translated into a book.

[Tvtyrant]

Yes, a book will increase your writing skills and an audio book will help your pronunciation. But what makes them "a vastly different media" or make them "work differently"? I've only listened to a few audio books, and besides having been put off by a reader whose voice I didn't like, I don't think there was a big difference.

The only thing I missed was an easy way to go back a few seconds, so I could "re-read" a sentence, but that's an interface thing and could be fixed rather easily. And even only becomes an issue if you do that constantly while reading books - and I don't. I just read the book from the beginning to the end.

I could understand calling them vastly different if someone constantly moved back and forth while reading a book, going back to earlier chapters to check how they compare to current scene...
I comprehend writing at a much faster rate than I understand someone talking. I can also reread it by simply moving my eyes back, while turning back the audio takes longer and breaks my rhythm more. I remember things I read better than things I hear. There are tons of jokes and references that don't work outloud but do in writing due to the different idiosyncrasies.

[Jay R]

Why do you say the experiences are different? Is it because you can go back more easily in a book, re-read things, or do you think it's just different when you hear the words instead of reading them?

Sounds a bit strange to me.

Because I've had both experiences, and they are different.

In a book, I sometimes speed up, either to get past this part quickly or because I'm caught up in the action. And I sometimes slow down, to savor the situation, or the writing style.

Reading a book, I decide what tone of voice those words "should" be delivered in. In an audiobook, a reader makes that decision. Unless the reader is the author, that's an alien intrusion into the story, neither the intent of the author nor of the reader.

I really enjoy hearing an author's reading of a book. It is a different experience in the other direction. I'm getting more of the author's actual intent - if the author can perform well.

[dehro]

reading is undoubtedly different from listening, even on a superficial level.
listening to an audiobook, unless you actually sit there and do nothing else (which would surprise me) means that you're only investing part of your attention in the book, the other part being dedicated to whatever else you're doing, be it driving, doing the dishes or exercising.
as for the listening part, some of the attention is going to be diverted to the reader, his voice, the quality of the reading, rather than the content of what he's reading.
then there's the voices. different characters have different voices. a single reader who "does voices" often sounds from odd to stupid. a single reader who just reads the different parts aloud is going to be "just him" and that's odd too because it negates part of the identity of the characters.
when you read things in your head you're not actually giving them different voices (unless you have some very peculiar talents) but they do come over as different anyway, in a non-descript, but also non marred by you actually hearing them, fashion.
then there's the pacing. when you read a book, you decide the pace of reading, you decide whether to fast-read, skim or savour each turn of phrase, you decide whether to re-read a passage that may have been unclear on first reading. of course it would have been clear on first listening, so in that respect listening might be better, but I'm not making a qualitative difference. I'm not saying which is better (reading of course :smallbiggrin:) just pointing out that they're very different experiences.
you can, if you want, even take all the time in the world to read a book, whereas dropping an audiobook mid-listening may be a lot more confusing..
and then there's jokes that are based on how you write words that sound the same in a different manner. Think of Pratchett's in-sewer-ants.. how much more fun are they when you read about the concept than when you merely listen to it?
(also, footnotes of a humorous nature lose a lot of their appeal when you can't tell if they're in fact footnotes or part of the main text)

so yeah, very different experiences altogether...even without touching on the cognitive aspects of reading vs listening in terms of learning/practicing the language, where you develop very different skills depending on which of the two you're doing.

[endoperez]

I do in fact read audio books sitting still (or laying down) without doing anything else.
Also, regarding Pratchett - I'm not a native English speaker, and won't know the British references, and I can't recognize all the puns from just the written form. "Djelibeybi", for example, would have been clearer in an audio book than it was while I read the book.


Any way, thanks for the details guys.

[dehro]

you do?.. that's.. I don't know. actually to me that would seem..strange. If I have nothing else to do, I might as well just grab the book, is how I'd think.

Also, regarding Pratchett - I'm not a native English speaker, and won't know the British references, and I can't recognize all the puns from just the written form. "Djelibeybi", for example, would have been clearer in an audio book than it was while I read the book.

neither am I.. still.. with an audio only version I would have sat there wondering why on earth he'd have called a place Jelly Baby, not knowing he'd written it in such a fashion that it "looks" middle-eastern, which makes a lot more sense to me than just hearing it "as spoken".
anyway, that's just how my brain is wired

[tomandtish]

I do in fact read audio books sitting still (or laying down) without doing anything else.
Also, regarding Pratchett - I'm not a native English speaker, and won't know the British references, and I can't recognize all the puns from just the written form. "Djelibeybi", for example, would have been clearer in an audio book than it was while I read the book.


Any way, thanks for the details guys.

I'm curious.... Do you always listen to the book while doing nothing else? Or is it more a case of you sometimes are listening while doing other things 9dishes, laundry, etc), and sometimes listening while doing nothing (waiting to fall asleep)? If it is the first, you'd be the only person I ever encountered who fell into that category. (Everyone I've ever met who listened to audio books did so because they liked being able to do other things).

I certainly agree with everyone about the joy of the feel and smell of real books. I had to convert to e-books out of practicality. At 3000 plus books, my wife finally told me that the books were going outside or I was..... and I don't sleep well in the rain. :smallfrown:

[endoperez]

I'm curious.... Do you always listen to the book while doing nothing else? Or is it more a case of you sometimes are listening while doing other things 9dishes, laundry, etc), and sometimes listening while doing nothing (waiting to fall asleep)? If it is the first, you'd be the only person I ever encountered who fell into that category. (Everyone I've ever met who listened to audio books did so because they liked being able to do other things).

I think audiobooks require more focus than reading them normally if you want to follow everything. Pausing the audio book and then going a few seconds too far back every time there is a distraction becomes quickly very annoying, but that might only happen when whatever I was doing takes too much of my attention. I don't remember what I was trying to do when I noticed it.

One reason would be that I don't have a small player I could take with me for the boring activities. I could listen to a book while washing dishes. So I guess I'm in the first category, but I'd move on to the second as soon as I'd have the toys for it. :D For example, if I'm waiting for food to cook, I often have a physical book I read.