Visualbooks

You know, like audiobooks, only you read them with your eyes instead of your ears. It's a pretty neat idea, actually.

You've all heard my rant about how the reader really makes or breaks the audiobook. Well, I have a comparable one now; my enjoyment of a physical book can really be colored by its form and quality. I'm reading Exodus, but my copy is very old, paperback, falling apart with yellow pages and too small type. There's something so dated, so out of date, about how the physical book feels, that I fear I'm going to be biased against the story because of that.

So I think I might break PLR to check out a better copy of this book. I don't think it's breaking the rules, because it certainly isn't breaking the spirit of the thing, which is to read books I own. And I would finally keep that ten-year-old promise to Becky--hi Becky!

This prejudice of mine is also the reason ebook readers don't excite me. I'm a snob for the physical product; I make paper bag book covers for my trade paperbacks, I take the slipcovers off my hardcovers to protect them (weren't slipcovers invented to protect the actual hard cover?), and there was even a time in my life (that my sister remembers and rubs in my face) when I read my favorite books carefully so as not to crease the spines. I prefer hardbacks to paperbacks, even though they're heavy and a pain to carry around.

I judge them by their covers. And I'm not nearly as ashamed as I should be.