Are Books becoming obsolete ?

[grinder]

I agree with most of the comments on here, and personally I don't think the Novel will ever be replaced..

You only have to watch the film of a book you've read to see the difference between imagination and reality and you no longer seem to identify with the Hero/Heroine in the same way ..

Subjects to be studied for eduction, especially with film and the advice that points you in the direction of which parts are relevant to most exams,I think is handled far better on line..

But for me nothing could ever replace the excitement, the expectations, and that fantastic smell you get when you first open a brand new book.

It's like being a kid at Christmas all over again .....

[leddi]

just to walk in there and smell all the books was a treat

 

I love the smell of books!! I also love reading a book on a beach, in the bath, in bed...I stare at a screen all day so the last thing I want to do is look at a screen to read a book. However text books are different, for my masters we were told we had to have the most up to date edition (less than three years old!) I had already bought the text books before the course started (and I learnt this rule!) ..very annoyed

[manofstrad]

Two of my granddaughters are studying for exams and both have subjects covering the first and second world wars a subject on which over the years I have collected several books.

So I fetch my books out and told them they could borrow them if they wished and both girls looked through them .

One being two years older had already done the subjects the younger one was doing so the younger one started asking her question.

The older one asked if she could use the computer and went on to a web page that not only covered the subject it even finished with a Question and answer section,

(Boy, could I have done with that when I was a kid)

 

They didn't bother taking my books and needless to say I didn't push it, but it got me thinking, why bother reading the book when you can see the picture ?

In fact I notice the talking book section in my local library is getting bigger..

So are we heading to a future where books are becoming obsolete ?

 

I sincerely hope not. I love books and I am fortunate to have a library in my house which is overflowing with books of all kinds of subjects.

[BritPat]

I sincerely hope not. I love books and I am fortunate to have a library in my house which is overflowing with books of all kinds of subjects.

 

What was the last book you read ?

[manofstrad]

What was the last book you read ?

 

"Armadillo" by Billy Boyd, second read through actualy. I love his work.

[BritPat]

"Armadillo" by Billy Boyd, second read through actualy. I love his work.

 

Does it reinforce your view that the hoi polloi are out to get you?

[manofstrad]

Does it reinforce your view that the hoi polloi are out to get you?

 

That is not my view and if it were, how would that book reinforce it??

[BritPat]

That is not my view and if it were, how would that book reinforce it??

 

No need to let the cheese slip from ya biscuit !

 

You have the advantage over me insofar as you have read the book twice and as of yet I have denied myself the literary pleasure.

 

Amazon

Lorimer Black may suffer from a serious sleep disorder and an obsession with the labyrinths of the British class system, but Armadillo's peculiar protagonist is the star insurance adjuster of London's Fortress Sure PLC, unkindly known as the Fort. At the very start of William Boyd's noir-ish seventh novel, however, things take a decided swerve for the worse. On a bleak January morning one of his cases has apparently chosen to kill himself rather than talk: "Mr. Dupree was simultaneously the first dead person he had encountered in his life, his first suicide and his first hanged man and Lorimer found this congruence of firsts deceptively troubling."

Soon our hero, who himself has a lot to hide, finds himself threatened by a dodgy type whose loss he has adjusted way down and embroiled with the beautiful married actress Flavia Malinverno. "People who've lost something, they call on you to adjust it, make the loss less hard to bear? As if their lives are broken in some way and they call on you to fix it," Flavia dippily wonders. Lorimer also has his car torched and instantly goes from an object of affection to one of deep suspicion at the Fort. Then there is another case, the small matter of the rock star who may or may not be faking the Devil he claims is sitting on his left shoulder.

 

Needless to say, Lorimer is "becoming fed up with this role of fall guy for other people's woes." Boyd adds a deep layer of psychological heft and a lighter level of humour to this thinking-person's thriller by exploring Lorimer's manifold personal and social fears. This is a man who desperately collects ancient helmets even though he knows they offer only "the illusion of protection."

 

Another of Armadillo's many pleasures: its dose of delicious argot. Should Lorimer "oil" the apparent perpetrator of the Fedora Palace arson before he's oiled himself? Or perhaps he just needs to "put the frighteners" on him. Boyd definitely puts the frighteners on his readers more than once in this cinematically seedy and dazzling literary display. --Kerry Fried, Amazon.com

 

 

Product Description

One winter morning Lorimer Black goes to keep a business appointment and finds a hanged man. This is just the start of what turns out to be a horrendous period for Lorimer as he realizes that he's being set up at work and cast adrift outside the office. This is a very funny novel with its dark side that shows a good man being boxed in and unable to see how to help himself.

[manofstrad]

 

You have the advantage over me insofar as you have read the book twice and as of yet I have denied myself the literary pleasure.

 

That's the truest thing youv'e said all evening.

 

Try not to rely on blurb from Amazon too much in future.

[BritPat]

That's the truest thing youv'e said all evening.

 

Try not to rely on blurb from Amazon too much in future.

 

Should I choose to lie you wouldn't be able to detect it

 

It's a coincidence that the blurb on the book that you are currently re-reading has been misrepresented by the reviewer in line with your paranoia about motorists envying your Skoda?