Category Archives: Reading

It must be part of the New Year dearth of news, but I seem to have read a couple of articles recently about e-reading.  No, not the flogged-horse “Is Print Dead?” article.  The ones I’m thinking about are not so much about the effect of screen reading on the reader,  but more about the way that screen reading has  changed the writing itself, and may continue to do so in the future.

Off on a bit of a tangent was an article from The Conversation website called Will TV series go the way of Charles Dickens?  Michelle Smith from Deakin University turns back to the serialized form of nineteenth century British fiction which was published chapter by chapter, with a cliff-hanger at the end of each instalment to ensure that the reader purchased the next issue.  Television series used to be like this, too, she argues – until boxed sets and internet streaming means that viewers can gorge on  a whole season (and even multiple seasons) at one or more (lengthy) sessions.  She wonders if, just as the serialized periodical-versions of 19th century books were condensed and the cliff-hangers removed once they were published in one volume:

We can only speculate on the future of television now that traditional methods of broadcast have shifted so dramatically. Yet it is likely that these changes in how we consume television will have some effect on the content we watch in the same way as shifting patterns of print publication altered the very nature of popular fiction in the 19th century.

Related to this, on the same Conversation website, is another article entitled A good year for screen readers: notable ebooks of 2013.  Zoe Sadokierski from UTS nominated three ebooks that have used the digital format to do something that print could not.  The first, The Silent History was first published in serialized form, one chapter a day, just as the 19th century novels above were. Now that the whole book has been released, it can be purchased as a complete work.  The chapters are supplemented with video content and user-generated reports.  The second, Gimbal is a short story anthology where you can select the story you want according to the amount of time you have to read it, by genre, or by setting. Maps and pictures support the stories set in a particular city.  Finally, she nominated Interaction of Colour, which was originally written in 1960 and has been re-released in hardcover version (at a rather eyewatering price!) You can tap on hotspots for definitions; there are video and audio commentaries; and there are interactive activities to complete.  It does sound a bit textbook-y to me, but obviously the images are beautiful and the crystal-clear screen of an ipad would do them justice.  We heard a lot about ‘convergence’ a few years ago, but these three examples all affirm for me the blend of ‘reading’ and ‘viewing’ that was predicted with e-readers and screen-based reading technology.

Finally, and rather depressingly, is a short segment from an ABC radio program called Who’s reading the reader? which can be streamed or read from the transcript.  Apparently digital libraries can track your reading behaviour and the data can be used to provide feedback to authors.  The information could show the point at which readers abandon a story, or jump ahead, or go back a few pages to re-read.  If readers return to favourite characters or scenes, they could be brought into a spin-off story.   Ah, it’s all about the ‘product’ and ‘delighting the consumer’, isn’t it?

At the moment I’m reading River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh, the second in what will be the Ibis trilogy.  I very much enjoyed the first book Sea of Poppies, written in 2008 which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

So, some eighteen months later, here I am with the second installment. The sad reality is that I really can’t remember all that much about the first, except that I enjoyed it.  Even my own blog post doesn’t enlighten me particularly.  I’m aware that he’s providing small snippets of back story for those who have not read the first book, but they’re not evocative enough to trigger a rush of memories.  At the moment, all they’re doing is frustrating me- should I remember more about this character???

Reading a trilogy as it is being produced, rather than coming to it later as a finished product, means that there is often a long waiting time between volumes- three years in this case.  Authors generally do back track a bit, but there’s a limit to how much they’re able to do this without retelling the first story over again.  I assume that they write so that a new reader could read it without having read the first book.  However, while the author has probably been living with his characters – and maybe even his/her vision for the work as a whole , for years- readers (or at least, I)  don’t have this same level of intimacy and have moved on to other books and other stories.

So what to do? Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I can easily find a plot summary of the earlier book but somehow that feels like cheating.  I feel as if the book should be able to stand on its own two feet, but I’m willing to admit that perhaps the problem in this case lies more with the reader than the author.

Dammit- I’m going to do it.  Lord Wiki, here I come.

I’ve recently finished reading a 1970s, much-cited history book that I borrowed from my university library.  It was on the shelf for borrowing, rather than being superannuated off into the CARM centre, a “repository for low-use and last copy research publications and artefacts” that is located somewhere at La Trobe.  I don’t know exactly where on campus it is located: the librarian I asked came over all shy and evasive- it’s all a bit mysterious and reminiscent of the Cemetery of Lost Books in Carlos Ruiz Zafron’s  Shadow of the Wind.

But this particular book was sitting there on the shelf, still optimistically expecting to be borrowed. When I turned to the back of it, I was delighted to see it still had the date stamp pages from its many, many borrowings- in fact, it had eight sheets of them!

The book was first borrowed in September 1976, when it must have been relatively hot-off-the-press, as its publication date in England was 1975.   It was borrowed at least once every year between 1976 and 1996, with particularly heavy borrowing in 1981 and 1982 when it was put onto the reserve desk for three-hour loan.  But alas, the trail grows cold after 2001 when the library decided to no longer date stamp books but to issue a receipt instead.

I’m nosy enough to always scrutinize the receipts I find in the books I’m borrowed, to check out what other books other anonymous patrons have borrowed along with this one.  It’s an ephemeral pleasure though, because the receipt I found in this book, from July 2007 had faded so much that it’s barely legible.

But this book yielded another little treasure- a Call Reserve slip.  I haven’t seen one for years (although this one hasn’t been filled in correctly).

Reserve fines 60 cents per hour eh? They’re now $2.50 for any part of the the first hour, then $1.00 an hour after that.

The $10.00 accrual limit still stands. I have reached it -ahem- once or twice.

I always loved the paraphenalia of the library borrowing process.  My library card was a treasured item- in fact, my local library FORCED me to finally change to one of their swipe cards just recently, but I still kept the original card.  I used to love being on lunchtime library duty in primary school, and being a library monitor who covered the books and got to paint the call number on the spine after the beautifully coloured dustjacket had been taken off  (why, oh why?) and stored in the map drawer.  I didn’t possess all that many books of my own- probably only one shelf- but they were all in alphabetical order by author, adorned with a call number, with a catalogue card in a little tin file.  All my dolls had a library card and were issued with loans, with the due date stamped onto a page glued onto the back just like the book I borrowed this week,  and they were all duly fined when they failed to return them on time (no doubt because they were such party animals).

When it came to choosing a career, there was no question of going to university unless I received a studentship, which suited me fine as I couldn’t decide between teacher/librarian or classroom teacher. But I had to designate one or the other on the application form, and so I did- then changed my mind, took the form back and altered it to the other- changed my mind again- and- again.  Eventually the form was sent off and my fate was sealed- classroom teacher.

I love being able to search catalogues on-line, and databases are things of wonder (and hours of lost time).  It’s great being able to renew your own books over the internet, and to put a hold on books you notice while browsing the catalogue- an activity you’d be unlikely to undertake with the old card catalogues.  But sometimes I miss the knowledge that the book I hold in my hand has been held by nameless others, and that I’m just one in a long line of borrowers.