Our books (and the rest of our possessions) have just arrived back from Australia and oh boy how much I LOVE having them back! There really is nothing quite so beautifully portable as a book. It's light. It's accessible. It's portable. It's user-friendly. It's joyous!
I must admit that I do scurry between book and computer as I note down quotes or ideas which emerge from reading, but oh how I love having my beloved books back!
Current reads are going to sound very dull ('The Tipping Point' by Malcolm Gladwell and re-reading 'The Long Tail' by Chris Anderson), but my head is far more full of ideas than it has been for a long time and part of that is in no small part down to the diminished distractability factor. With a book you engage with the book. You don't go 'ooooh, there's another book over there, I'll just go investigate that and be back to this in a bit'. It's you and the page. The words don't link anywhere. Don't animate. Don't do anything fancy. Don't overheat and shut down at inappropriate moments (glares pointedly at laptop). But I'm struck by how much we push forwards with new technologies and leave behind technologies which are perfectly adequate, beautiful in their simplicity and may well do an even better job at helping you make mental connections.
Simplicity of material delivery up = Distractability factor down?
So... given the irony that I put down my book, came to the computer, wrote a blog entry and stopped reading to communicate this thought to anyone other than the inside of my skull... I return to my book with pleasure!
PS I've also just started to get back into film photography alongside digital - I could eulogize about that too. But I'll save that for another day. :o)
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