I just read Audrey Niffenegger’s novel The Time-Traveler’s Wife , a really good love story with a two hanky ending. Of course, it’s also speculative fiction, and clever, and all that, but mainly, it’s love, with the tiniest hint of pedophilia that no one could object to. Niffenegger herself is an artist and art teacher, and on her web site there are FAQ’s that include a question about why her books aren’t available as e-books, and she explains that as someone who creates books as physical objects as an artist as well as writing them, she on principle insists that her books remain objects. As an artist, she makes a good point. For me, it has never been the books, although I’ve always loved illustrations, but rather the trip: you go in that place and go far, far away. So I’m anything but doctrinaire about the object, having always preferred paperbacks, for example, to hardcovers.
Tags: books, e-readers, love, objects, technology