Are our print books suffering from lack of visibility?I clearly remember how happy I was, when first being able to afford to buy a book for myself and placing it proudly on a shelf. From then on it became a hobby to choose, read, keep notes about, the latest book and then let it join the growing collection.
When friends came to the house they always made for the bookshelf to see what I'd been reading and we would take books from the shelves and discuss them. The current book would be lounging on the coffee table or arm of the settee, its bookmark protruding.
I have welcomed the E-readers and my first novel is published both in print and electronic version. It is so useful to read using the electronic method but, thinking recently, I noticed, with a certain sadness, that because of my use of the E-reader, my friends are being denied the previous availability of being able take a book from my shelves to discuss the latest exciting find as the titles are now hidden away in my reader.
As Louis L'Amour used to do, for years, I have kept a notebook listing each year's reading and it is through this documenting that I often remember what was happening that particular year when reading a particular book and it was good to look up at a shelf and see the book standing there.
Although I make a point of reviewing every book bought via Amazon, it is not the same as having the physical book in your own living-room in order to give personal recommendations. A collection of books on a bookshelf has always been aesthetically pleasing, sort of cosy. The books become friends in themselves to take down, to re-read, and to quote from.
I wonder what you think? Is it possible that authors are being denied this simple method of recommendation, as many readers no longer have the latest printed copy of a book displayed on a bookshelf or lounging on a coffee table?
Here is a snippet of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894 called 'The Land of Story-Books'.
I think we perhaps also need to leave books lying around so that children see our own enjoyment of them. It is clear, in this little excerpt from the poem, that books were Robert Louis Stevenson's childhood friends:
At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.
Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
There, in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter’s camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read
Till it is time to go to bed.
It would be good, if you have time, to take a look at my book here
UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maz-Me-Sharon-Loveday/dp/1494361582/ref=tmm_pap_title_0