Books

Recycling books

bookrecycling

Books going out. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

I never throw away books. As I see it, that is very disrespectful to the authors. I either give them away to somebody else or give them to a charity organization for them to recycle. I still prefer reading printed books. I don’t enjoy reading on a computer screen or iPad (not to mention iPhone).

I have three reasons to recycle books.
1. Book is hopelessly outdated, like the below ones in the picture.
2. I don’t like the story in the book.
3. I need more space in the bookcases (to be able to add new books).

bookrecyclingBooks going out. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

I recently started a box for books for recycling. The above ones I found in one of my bookcases and have placed in the box. Hopelessly outdated technical/computer books. So these are going out, and if anyone wants them, be my guest. Adobe GoLive CS? Application has been discontinued long ago. Adobe Dreamweaver CS3? We are now in version CC2015. Learn HTML? A lot has happened with html since that book was published. Mac OS X Leopard? Well, that was long ago. There are more in that bookcase that I need to get rid of.

bookrecycling

Going out… Photo: ©nini.tjader.2016

And then there is the above one… Found it in my bookcase for un-read books the other day and thought I’d read it out in the sun. I have no idea where I got it from. I cannot possible have paid for it? Can I? 28 pages and 4 chapters in I closed the book and decided not to read it. So “simple” both in language, ideas, story, expressions, and builds on pre-conceived ideas about how people think and act. Really bad. Took me less time than usual to disregard this book. “A romantical comedy” as it says on the cover… Definitely not my cup of tea. I do not read romantical comedies…

sunbed

Sunbed in the garden. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2016

Instead of that book I switched to one by Peter Robinson, “Piece of my heart” to read in the sun. He is good. All his books are good. Love his books.

The exceptional summer weather with loads of sun and warmth is now over and we are back to grey and rain and much colder weather, so I can also go back to blogging… Who wants to sit inside in front of the computer when there is sun and warmth outside?

Posted by nini in Books, Nerdish, Thoughts, 0 comments

Secret books

bookshelves, books

Secret books. Image borrowed from the internet.

This trend to turn the titles of the books away from the viewer and hide it, to make secret books…

I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to FIND my books and see their titles… I don’t want my books to be secret.

This trend of sorting books according to color or by not at all showing which books are in the bookcase by turning their backs toward the walls… It is insulting to the books. And makes it absolutely impossible to find a particular book. Secret books.

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Secret books. Image borrowed from the internet.

What is the point of placing them like this?
To not get distracted by the books colors or titles?
To keep the titles secret to the viewer?

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Secret books. Image borrowed from the internet

Is it beautiful? No, not in my eyes.
Is it practical? No. Not at all.
It makes the bookcase totally impersonal.
Maybe that is the point of placing the books like this?

If you are not going to ever again find a particular book and only use them for decorating purposes: then use a wallpaper with books on instead.

bookwallpaper

Wallpaper with books. Image borrowed from the internet.

Posted by nini in Books, decoration, Furniture and Decoration, Interior Design, walls, 0 comments

Sorting Books

wallmounted shelves, shelves, bookcase, books

Picture from Alvhem, via http://blogg.skonahem.com/addsimplicity

Recently saw this picture in a post at addsimplicity and read the blogpost. Yes, this is beautiful. Yes, it is airy and light. Yes, wall-mounted shelves are nice and good and I wish I could have them (not all walls can manage the weight of them). And yes, it might be feng-shui to colorsort books and to mix them with decorative elements in between.

BUT. The above is not a bookcase. It is wall-mounted shelves with decorative items on them and a few books in between. It is not a bookcase… A bookcase contains primarily books. Not decorative items and/or plants. That they only do if you do not have a lot of books or isn’t a person who read paper-books. The few books above can be colorsorted and you might still find the book you are looking for. But that is only because they are so few. If you own a lot of books, colorsorting them is really out. You won’t be able to find any of the books you will be looking for.

colorsortedbooks, bookcase, books

Colorsorted books. Image from the Internet.

I sort my books primarily according to surname of the author. Or, in the case of the smaller bookcases with less books in, according to subject. Plant-books together, cookery books together, atlases together etc. Primarily though by author.

They either stand up or lay down depending on sizes and space. I also use the space in front of the books for smaller decorative items. Not too many though. The bottom shelf nearest to the floor contain larger and heavier books. That keeps the bookcases steady.

books, bookcases, bookwall

Bookwall in the livingroom. Photo. ©nini.tjader.2015

I would never be able to find anything if I colorsorted my books.

I would love to have wall-mounted book-cases. You get in more books in them and they really look airy compared to regular bookcases. My walls aren’t suitable for those though. And I like to be able to move furniture around. Wall-mounted shelves makes that much more difficult.

wallmounted shelves, bookcase, books

Image from the internet.

Posted by nini in Books, decoration, Furniture and Decoration, Interior Design, 0 comments

Big Type

Catching Fire

Some time ago I bought the three books The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins from Amazon.com.

When I had finished reading The Hunger Games and opened Catching Fire I got very surprised. The type was BIG. Looking at the cover it actually says Large Print Edition… That was not what I ordered, and part one, The Hunger Games, had normal sized print. Checked the third book, Mockingjay, and found that it had large print as well. So, out of three books, one had normal print, the others large print.

I’ve never before read a book with large print and it feels a bit odd. Easy to read, yes, but it disturbs my typographical sense as the text is ugly when that big. Of course books can be read anyways. It is the content that counts.

Are they any good? Yes. They are. Even grownups can read them, though targeted at youths.

Catching Fire

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Posted by nini in Books, Design, 0 comments

Just a comparison

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Adam and Eve from the old family bible.

I enjoy comparing images from the old bibles I happen to own. In this case the illustrations of Adam and Eve. The above one is from the old family bible that I inherited from my parents which originally came from my grandmother Fanny. It was printed in 1899. The below one is from the bible I wrote about in the post about illustrations and typography the other day.

It is interesting to compare styles of the illustrations as they come from different eras. The more detailed above and the cleaner one below.

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Adam and Eve, from the German bible.

The old family bible has golden covers which are somewhat damaged. Materials of covers seem to be some mix of old leather and paper.

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Golden front of family bible

The pages are well preserved despite their age and the very thin paper they are printed on. The illustrations and typography are interesting also in this bible. Detailed illustrations. Ornamented first letters in each chapter.

First book of Moses, first page.

First book of Moses, first page.

I loved to leaf through this family bible when I was little to look at the detailed images. I still do. The text is in an old style swedish that even to us that know swedish can be hard to understand sometimes. The edition of this particular bible is also an older one that do not exactly correspond to the current editions.

I love old books.

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Posted by nini in Books, DTP and Layout, Various, 0 comments

Illustrations and typography

I love good illustrations and good typography. No matter where it appears. Like in this book for instance…

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The damaged cover. Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

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It apparently came from this shop.

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This one was published in 1908.

In 1963, when I was in Israel for the very first time, I found this old book in a demolished house in southern Israel, close to the the Egyptian border and Gaza. Looked in it and decided that no matter its weight, I would take it home to Sweden. And so I did.

It is not the entire Bible. It is the five books of Moses + the book of Josua. It is in german. At some time it belonged to somebody and was given to him on his bar mitzwah in June 1919. His name was Ernst Pinkus. According to Google there was an Ernst Pinkus born in 1908… If that was the same one, whose book I have, I have no idea, and I have not investigated it either. (And I don’t want anyone claiming the book this long afterwards…).

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The illustrations are beautiful and so is the typography. The covers are very damaged, but the inside of the book is fairly well kept. This book is over a hundred years old so…

Here are some examples of the illustrations and the typography.

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bib_welt_tysk

bib_sabbath_tysk

Every chapter in the book has these beautiful illustrations and every part in it has really nice beginning capitals. I guess you can call its style “jugend” or art nouveau when it is at its best. Love it and love to look at the pictures and the layout.

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Posted by nini in Books, Design, Various, 0 comments

Do I REALLY NEED an iPad?

ipad, apple

Image borrowed from apple.se

For some time now I’ve been trying to reason with myself to find out if I REALLY NEED an iPad… Thing is, I have all those ebooks, mainly free from Dagens Nyheter as a bonus as a subscriber with activated digital subscription. Plus some other ebooks.

I am tempted. And reading a book on an iPad would feel OK – though I don’t want to read magazines/newspapers on screen but then prefer paper.

ebooks, ibooks, digital books

My present ebooks

When will I read these books without an iPad (the one top left I’ve created myself testing certain software)? I DO have a portable, a MacBook Pro, and nowadays the application iBooks also works on a computer, and not only on an iPad or iPhone. But to carry around the entire MBP to be able to read the digital books on the bus or the commuter train: I don’t think so.

Could of course read them on the iPhone… or? I’ve tried. Painful. The screen is way too small.

Or should I read them on my 24″ iMac? I don’t much fancy sitting in front of the iMac to read a book (just as I don’t fancy sitting in front of the iMac watching movies).

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Warning when opening an ebook on a computer with regular OS and not iOS.

And the books are normally not designed for the computer, but only for iOS-objects. They DO work anyways though, but the navigation becomes more complicated, as the computer doesn’t have a touch screen.

ebook, coverpages

ebook bookpages

Book pages example

If you change the size of the window for the book, the content of the book reflows, and so does the number of rows shown. The smaller the screen, the less content at each page. Some also argue that the layout and the typography of ebooks suffer from the media and that they do not get as visually attractive as a printed book. The techniques for creating them is still in its infancy… But that will change over time.

There are some added bonuses to an ebook compared to a book printed on paper. There can be several levels of information on one single page by links to additional information that is not shown unless you click on the link. Navigation is also more advanced than for a printed book where you just turn pages by hand.

ebookexample

ebookexample

Ebooks can also include animations, video and sound, just click on a link.

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Screenshot from Yellow Submarine

Why an iPad and not some other pad? Because I am all Macintosh and have been since 1984. I have three Macs and two iPhones (the older one serving as alarm clock only). So why haven’t I bought an iPad yet? Of the same reason: I have three Macs and two iPhones… Do I REALLY NEED an iPad?

What makes me hesitate is that it costs a lot of money (that I don’t have). I also wouldn’t settle for the cheapest one without 3G and and only 16GB storage. I also wouldn’t settle for the iPad2 which is cheaper. The screen of the iPad2 is not as good as the retina screen on iPad Air. IF I buy, it has to be an iPad Air with reasonably much storage and with 3G (so I can connect from almost anywhere). They are SO nice. I’ve seen and touched them.

It costs to be on top…

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Posted by nini in Books, Nerdish, Thoughts, Various, 0 comments

The use of books

bokhylla, böcker, books, book-cases

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014

I read. I’ve always read a lot. Started early. Often had multiple books going at the same time. We didn’t have many books at home. They were too expensive to buy. But I was read to by my father when I was little, mainly Donald Duck magazines… And I got one book a year as birthday present. When I learnt to read by myself, I went to the library and borrowed books. I finished the children’s department at the library by the age of 12 and was then moved to the grownup department by the librarian who had no more to offer me in her department.

I’ve kept on reading and still have multiple books going at simultaneously. I started reading books in English when I lived in Tel Aviv. Had no choice and there were no swedish books around there. Nowadays I switch between english and swedish. I never throw away a book. But I give them away to whichever organization that wants them when I need more space in my bookcases. I’ve had friends who’ve asked me why I don’t throw out a book that I have read. They looked very puzzled when I said that I might want to re-read them. Those friends were not book-readers.

bokhyllor, books, book-cases, böcker

Photo: ©nini.tjader.2014 – As you can see from the titles I read a lot of fantasy among other things.

I sort my books alphabetically according to the authors surname. I also have certain shelves for certain subjects (all books about software for instance have their own shelves). Sometimes they stand up, sometimes they lay down. The latter mainly with pocketbooks, which are small and take up less space laying down in a pile as high as the shelf sometimes.

One thing I really dislike is the trend to color-sort ones books… Looks terrible (in my eyes) and how on earth are you supposed to find something in a bookcase where books are color-sorted? Do those people only have books for decoration and not for reading?

books

Image borrowed from the internet and resized.

Some other even worse trends in the use of books is using the books to build  furniture from them… What a waste of books…

books-as-furniture

Image borrowed from the internet.

booktable

Image borrowed from the internet.

The worst of all is when bookpages are torn out and glued to a wall as wallpaper.

bookpageswallpaper

Image borrowed from the internet.

Books are for reading, not for building furniture of, or use as wallpaper. It is such a disrespect to the author of the books to use them for anything but reading. As I see it. When read, don’t throw them away, but give them to any organization that wants them which can either sell them, or give them to somebody else, if you don’t want to keep them yourself any longer. Have some respect for the books and the work by the author.

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Posted by nini in Books, Interior Design, Various, 0 comments

Why not try a book?

epub, digital books, books

Saw the above image on FaceBook (or was it Google+ ?) the other day and borrowed it.

I totally agree.

I really dislike reading books onscreen. I might be a computer nerd, but there is the limit.

I know that is what you are supposed to do nowadays.

I don’t have an iPad. I have an iPhone 4S. And three Macs. And a 40″ HDTV which I can connect to my MacBook Pro (and it is also online).

Reading on a screen is tiresome. Books – and other longer texts – I prefer reading on paper.

I also tried spoken books a couple of times. Don’t like those either. I lose track of where I am, it is hard to recapture, and I also too easily lose concentration and therewith the content of the book.

I know that digital publishing/epubs is supposed to be THE method of publishing nowadays. I refuse epubs so far.  I am glad I don’t have to deal with their creation (as I am retired).

I believe in books and their survival. No matter what a lot of other people say.

I also believe in newspapers on paper and magazines, non-digital. I think those will survive as well. I surely hope they will.

Posted by nini in Books, Thoughts, 1 comment

The Anne Mc Caffrey books

I intended to start writing in this blog right after I created it…. Instead I got stuck in the Catteni (aka Freedom) books by Anne Mc Caffrey… I’ve just started the third book and have that and one more to go. In that series. Unable to stop reading.

I recently also finished the Pern series and now only wait for the last one in that series to get published in pocket – which will be in December this year according to Amazon.com. I enjoy her books. Could they be called “light SF” ? Fortunately she has been very productive so I still have lots of her books to read in other of her series. She never gets boring. And she continues to renew her stories and tell them in different ways.

When not reading, have been out taking pictures of the faster and faster approaching autumn, beautiful trees in all colors. We had frost this morning and 0 centigrades. Mittens and wintercoat out for the first time this season.

The website of Anne McCaffrey is here.

Posted by nini in Books, 0 comments