• Turret3857@infosec.pub
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    12 days ago

    “I bought another book”

    • transactional
    • people will ask if you REALLY need more books
    • reminds you you live under capitalism and sends your money to someone who has enough money already

    “i downloaded this PDF, and found a way to directly support the author (donation of some sort, some sort of merchandise, some other third thing)”

    • you didnt have to pay 3 different middlemen (a bookstore, a publisher, the manufacturer)
    • you either kept more of your money, or the author got more than if you had bought the book
    • you can share the pdf with friends and family, and it isnt taking up space.

    finding a way to support the author is optional if its a college textbook or some shit you’re required to have.

    • red_bull_of_juarez@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 days ago

      Yeah, that’s an extremely hot take. 90% of everything is garbage and books are no exception. I don’t understand this mystification of books. As if shit becomes better when you take the effort of printing and binding it.

      • snoons@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        I’m quite certain it’s a carry-over from the ‘middle’ ages. Before the printing press, books would take an extreme amount of resources to create. You had to get the leather from a calf or ten twenty+ (IIRC one calf has enough skin for two pages), which would be bought from multiple villages within a lords domain (understand that cows were incredibly valuable back then for their milk and meat). Then you had to prepare it; the reason calves were used was because their skin would be relatively undamaged from bug bites (which would became holes during preparation) and would have somewhat less hair on it. Then you would have to have a scribe actually write in it and have it “illuminated” by other craftsmen (making it look pretty by applying gold leaf to the cover and/or the first letters of the chapter). This would all take years of labour as well.

        By the end, a finished, illuminated book would likely cost more than the entire building it’s stored in, hence the chained libraries.

        • outhouseperilous@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 days ago

          It’s also an aesthetic; the smell of papers the abundance of spines to read in your peripheral vision, the tidiness (or not) of your organizational system, the physical weight and visceral accessibility of knowledge indexed durable independent of source, the telltale signs of use utility and lovedness in the media you just dont get on a ssd.

    • architectonas@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Is Twilight really such a bad book? I read the first book when I was 12. I can’t remember it being exceptionally bad – but again, I was 12…

      • silasmariner@programming.dev
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        11 days ago

        I can’t speak to that, but the two films I did go see (‘ironically’ apparently with my gf and our mate) were atrocious, despite a strong Robert Patterson

  • anar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    12 days ago

    Ironically, I bought a financial advice book from (what I found out midway through to be) a British “finfluencer”. It was bad. It came in a glossy and attractive packaging, but I would certainly not call it a priceless treasure.