Accidental Discoveries
John Connolly has an interesting piece on his blog about how we accidentally find new, interesting things, and how modern technology may change this soon.
I suppose the concept of instant gratification has been on my mind ever since reading an article about Google in a newspaper last week. Google, as some of you may know, rather fancies making every book ever written available to people on the Internet: just press a button, and the text will appear on the screen before you. It is, I suppose, the way of the future, but it seems to me that it spells a slow death for the idea of browsing and searching, at least in a way that does not involves browsers and search engines. In my darker hours, I wonder sometimes if, a generation or two down the line, there will even be bookstores to visit.
He has a point there, what I like about books is that you can read them anywhere, no power needed, you can browse them, get drawn in and get lost in them.
His story on how he finds books is interesting in a way because this is pretty much how I found him, his books. I was browsing around a book store, grabbed the book, read the cover text, started reading the first chapter and was hooked. This was Black Angel, and he has me as a reader since then….. I am not sure I would have found his book (or others) online. I don’t like reading large texts online (and yet, I still spend probably 50% of my time reading online, if not more so these days), but there is something nice, relaxing in sitting down somewhere with a book… Safety?
On my last move I realized I own around 2000 pounds worth of books and CDs…. My total moving weight was 3500 pounds, that should give you an idea on how important the written word is to me.
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