Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Reading

I'm reading Hardball right now, for AP gov. It has, quite possibly, the dorkiest book cover of a book that I've actually read. However, it has a Machevelli reference every third page, so there's a few redeming qualities.
If you have an E-reader, do you get that feeling of turning the last page and wishing there was more, feeling like you've lost something that you relied on? Or do you turn the last page and move on to the next book, leaving no time to mourn it's passing? That's the kind of thing that scares me about Kindles and whatnot. Maybe they take away our ability to apprechiate a single book and they merge stories together into a never ending series of entertainment. Do you reread things on a Kindle? And with self publishing, how will we decide what's good? Is it simply what's popular? And is genre simply liking the same things that other people like? Do you finish books as much with a Kindle, or is it another cause of Internet Induced Attention Disorders?
I don't know if it's good or bad.
However, I think reading with the internet offers a new chance for something that I would like to try: Serializing. Having subscribers and getting a new chapter out every week and having readers engaged, it's like television. I love the idea of literary television.
If I was to serialize a novel, it would be the lovechild of Pushing Dasies and Ugly Betty. In book form.
This blog post was kind of a poor argument. I need to work on that if I want to make a living serializing my writing for the world to see.

2 Fab Fans:

Bianka Rose said...

I like the idea of serializing, but I don't like that concept that someday the novel will become obsolete. It has its benefits and downfalls, like many other things I suppose.

Samantha said...

I don't think the novel will be obsolete, but I think this opens the door for other forms of fiction. Things no longer have to fit into the short story-novella-novel set, they can be different lengths and forms.
Some people say that e-readers hurt poetry. Since I don't like poetry, I don't care, but apparently form matters to them.