Books

Back in October, I wrote about books vs. e-readers and when I use which.

I just wanted to do a quick follow-up on this and confirm that all experience since then backs up my decision to buy actual books for non-fiction, and reserve the e-readers for fiction only—but that doesn't mean that I've stopped second-guessing myself.

I've still mostly been reading non-fiction, but my Kindle, iPhone, and iPad have all got a workout this week, and I have a new appreciation for Kindle syncing. I've been reading the Hunger Games trilogy¹, and the ability to seamlessly go between devices without losing my place has been fantastic. I've been reading on the Kindle at home, on the iPhone on the train, and on the iPad while giving blood the other day.

For straight reading, this is fantastic. I'm still debating where I may want to use the digital format for non-fiction, though. In particular, I think that memoirs and other books that fall into a story-like format would be good for it, but I've never felt comfortable taking notes in digital books. And that's exactly why I stopped using the Kindle for non-fiction: anytime I came across something I wanted to note, I would pause and debate how I wanted to handle it, because I didn't trust that highlights there wouldn't be lost—or more importantly, that they would be meaningless without the surrounding text to provide context. However, the important part of that sentence came at the beginning: "I would pause and debate." It was distracting and took me out of what I was reading.

I still haven't really tried iBooks, because there didn't seem to be a good reason to: books purchased for Kindle had more flexibility, in terms of devices. But, I think it might be worth it to try one or two books in iBooks to see how well it handles notes and highlights. The iBooks page on Apple.com indicates that notes can all be viewed in one place, and from there you can jump to the context within the piece. If it works smoothly, it may well be the tool I've been waiting for to get away from physical books.

There is a photo of Roger Ebert in his library that paints the picture I thought I wanted to be in some ten or twenty or thirty years from now. I always figured that someday, when I make my fortune, I would have enough money to throw around that my home would include a room with a large projection screen for movies, and another with shelves built into every wall to house my collection of books.

And then there's Rands' essay from last summer, The Book Stalker:

Where’s your bookshelf? It’s this awkward moment whenever I first walk into your home. Where is it? Everyone has one. It might not be huge. It might be hidden in a closet, but in decades of meeting new people, I’ve never failed in finding one and when I do I consume it.

See, I don’t really trust you until we talk a little shit and then I see your bookshelf.

My bookshelf held that kind of importance to me. It was a snapshot of the literature that was important to me, and similar to what Rands said, one could suss out some extra information from the books. The worn-out ones had been well-loved; the ones with unbroken spines hadn't been read yet, and perhaps said more about the kind of books I felt like I should read than what I actually read. My bookshelf was carefully arranged by author - except for technical books, which tend to be larger, and were thus arranged by topic on the bottom shelf - and the books were all lined up to the edge of the shelf, as I had once done endlessly as a library employee in college.

The first major blow to my meager library was the move into my fifth DC apartment. It was my second move with Erin, into the apartment we share now with our dog. It's hard to maintain a reverence for the things after schlepping heavy boxes of them again and again. I gave half of them to a used book store that donates their profits to charity.

The second blow came when I got a Kindle a few months ago. It's hard to make the case for amassing hardcovers when I can take a dozen books to the gym and read what I'm in the mood for, and at a lower cost per book.

My bookshelf today is a lot smaller. Instead of the wide, six-foot tall bookshelf I had for years, I'm using a small DVD shelf for the half that made the cut. The OCD side of me feels like a sham for this mishmash of read and unread books mixed together with no organization, but the rational side of me is OK with it. What I take away from the books is a lot more important than keeping them as trophies anyway.

And now, when I make my fortune, maybe I'll just knock the wall out of the would-be library and make my private theater twice as big.

Way back in December, I was reading Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity? and trying to keep an open mind about it. Which was tough, because it was pretty awful.

Around Christmas, I finished writing up my notes and rebuttals, but never really got around to polishing it up and citing better references and what have you. After four months, I've decided that I probably never will, so I'm just posting what I wrote then:

I'm starting to think I may have bought the wrong book. I mean, I don't think there were any elections for it or anything, but is Dinesh D'Souza the spokesman for Christians? I just started chapter seven of What's So Great About Christianity? It begins on page 67, which should give you some sense of the depth with which D'Souza explores his arguments.

By the time I got through the first chapter, I had made several notes in the margins and on an index card. My plan was to collect my notes and counter-arguments, cite other authors' arguments where appropriate, and compile it into a sort of supplemental to give to my parents at Christmas - a "this is what I believe and why" package.

It became clear, around chapter three, that I was going to have a ton of writing to do if I wanted to adequately address his flimsy and largely unfounded arguments. I haven't been taking as many notes since, because really, what's the point? Here's your reading supplemental: read The God Delusion first, and What's So Great About Christianity? will seem absolutely absurd in comparison.

I may post my comments after each of the eight parts of the book, if there's anything worth mentioning. Like I said in my original post about it, I'm trying to keep an open mind and give the other side their say, but it's really hard to take any of I seriously. Nonetheless, I soldier on, reading inane crap so you don't have to. I'll keep you posted.

For the second time this week, I'm wreaking havoc on my subscriptions in Google Reader, because ya know what? I don't need this much news, nor the guilt I feel for never reading it. Even so, I feel just a little guilty every time I removed a blog, even though I don't know any of the authors and rarely even read their posts.

I'm down to around 130 feeds now. I know that sounds ridiculous, until I tell you that I cut about 60 earlier this week, and 20 more since I started writing this post. A lot of the remaining 130 don't update regularly - probably 20 are friends that don't blog much, and another 30 are other low-post feeds. I can't believe that six months ago, I managed to keep up on so many of them. No wonder I didn't go out much.

And as long as we're talking productivity, I FINALLY started reading Getting Things Done this week. I've been reading it on the Metro, so I'm only about 50 pages in, but already I'm feeling a lot more relaxed - knowing that I'm at least taking some initiative to sort out this mess has reduced my stress level a fair bit. Cleaning out my feed reader is step one - I know very little about the GTD system at this point, but I think that getting rid of all that unnecessary distraction will help.

And as long as we're talking books, I also started The God Delusion last week, and I'm liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Richard Dawkins has always seems kind of dry, and...well, BRITISH, so I was worried it would be boring, but he keeps a pretty good pace. It's another book I've been meaning to read for a long time and finally got around to starting.

And as long as we're talking about God, I feel I should mention that we decided on Friday that "God" shall henceforth be known as "göd" (pronounced sort of like "gurd," for those of you that don't speak German). Just so you all know.