I have still never purchased nor read an e-book.
You cannot call me a Luddite, though — for heck's sake, I have a blog with 1,000-plus posts and
a robust Twitter account. And, to be fair, I can envision situations in which e-books might make sense — if I was a business traveler, or had a daily hour-long train commute or vacationed for weeks at a time in the Azores, I might want to load up an e-reader with a bunch of pulp fiction to pass the time.
But, so far, e-books aren't for me.
I'm a Books Guy. Books you can hold in your hands and take anywhere without worrying about battery life or the elements.
Books, too, are more than just the sum of the words written by the author. They are full of other treasures. The kind of treasures that, to my knowledge, will never exist with e-books. As a Books Guy, I live for those discoveries within old books.
That's part of what this website is all about.
To drive home the point about the wonderfulness of real books, I present: "Eight Awesome Things You'll Never Find Inside E-books."
1. Bookseller's label from Ell's bookstore
This gorgeous little bookseller's label is just three-quarters of an inch wide.
1 It's affixed to the inside front cover of the 1959 hardcover edition of
Three Generations of Men by Judith Wright.
Ell's was a bookstore in
Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Historical information about it is very scarce on the Internet. One intriguing mention was found in "Schoolboy Rocketry: The Unofficial Rocketry Club at Newcastle Boys’ High School, 1964-1969," an article by by Trevor C. Sorensen:
2
"I was thrilled when in 1965 I discovered a book in Ell’s Bookstore in downtown Newcastle called Handbook of Model Rocketry by G. Harry Stine (who was the founder of the National Association of Rocketry). This was a wealth of information about rockets in general and model rockets specifically."
Also, I found this short obituary notice in the March 9, 2005, issue of Australia's
Weekly Book Newsletter:
"Mrs Mary Ell, of Max Ell Books in Roselands NSW and originally Ell’s Bookstore Newcastle, has passed away peacefully at home after a long illness. Married for 58 years, Max gave Mary the Roselands bookstore as a Mother’s Day gift 31 years ago. A stalwart in the book trade, Mary will be remembered as a tireless and enthusiastic worker while we had our Sydney city bookstores, especially at Roselands when she came to help during our centre court stalls. Loved by Max and her family, staff, colleagues and loyal customers. She will be sadly missed."
2. Handwritten inscription indicating ownership
Or, in this case, co-ownership. In this instance, we see that the 1938 hardcover edition of
Speech-Making by James A. Winans was co-owned by Edward Stick and Edgar Sell in 1940.
I'm sure there will be digital trails full of bits and bytes indicating e-book ownership for future cyber-archaeologists. But they can't be as elegant or interesting as a cursive inscription.
[As a random aside,
Speech-Making quotes this delicious sentence penned by Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I have known several genteel idiots whose whole vocabulary had deliquesced into some half dozen expressions."]
3 and 4. Bookseller's label and owner's signature
These were found within the 1904 hardcover edition of
The Commoner Diseases of the Eye by Casey A. Wood and Thomas A. Woodruff.
3 The bookseller's label — just 1½ inches wide — is for P. Blakiston's Son & Co., medical booksellers, of Philadelphia.
4 It is affixed to the top-left corner of the inside front cover.
Meanwhile, the one-time owner's signature appears on the first page, alongside the date October 1, 1904.
5
Any guesses on Henry's last name? (Trying to interpret antique cursive handwriting can be both fun and frustrating.)
