Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Maybe magazine writers will still get paid twenty years from now or maybe you’ll have to cut hair during the day and just write articles at night.”—Bill Gates from Hackers
In somewhat of a coincidence, I’m named after a great uncle who started his career in America, and like my grandfather, was born in Sicily, as a barber. He later became an undertaker—it’s a long story—so maybe I should pay more attention when going to Floyd’s Barbershop. This is the same Bill Gates who once famously said and later denied saying it, “640K is more memory than anyone will ever need,” but there’s no doubt things are changing in the publishing world.
In 2010 Sony claimed that within five years half of all books and magazines will be delivered digitally. They got it half right—the part about magazines anyway. But books? According to Toner Buzz, just 7% of adults in the United States say they only read e-books. And in 2021 eBook sales decreased by 8% but are still 8% higher than they were in 2019. 19% of adult readers owned an e-reader, a decrease from 32% in 2014. Do you own an eBook reader? I don’t. In 2020, There is no doubt e-readers make sense for younger people who may not have space for a library but I love all my hardbound books and like being surrounded by them.
At the big ABA book convention one year, a publisher confided to me that, “most people who buy books never read them.” If this follows the classic 80-20 rule and only twenty percent of people who buy books actually read them, is this remaining 20% going to spring for an iPad, electronic reader or just fuggedaboutit? I tried reading some of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter novels on my iPad but gave up because it felt awkward and heavy when reading in bed, where I do a lot of reading before pulling up the covers for the night. One exception to the rule about a tome’s weight might be The Furies the latest book by
Book of the Week
The subtitle of The Snowflake is “Winter’s Frozen Artistry” and it could just have easily been called everything you need to know about snowflakes. It’s a photo book because there’s lots of photographs of snowflakes in it, some of which have patterns and designs that will probably surprise you as much as they did me.
It’s not a how-to book on photographing snowflakes and while some of their photographic techniques are lightly discussed, the book is more of an overview of the world of snowflakes and the authors provide a wonderful window into that world.
The two authors, Kenneth Libbrecht & Rachel Wing, are a married couple with interesting backgrounds. He’s a physics professor and she’s a park ranger and together they photograph and write about snowflakes. And while they delve into the technical side of how snowflakes are created and why they look they way they do, this is not a physics textbook either. Instead it’s a fun read with just enough technical details to keep it interesting and is written in a friendly style that’s easily accessible to the casual, non-scientific reader.
In many ways The Snowflake is a small coffee table book. You can put it on your own coffee table and lets guests thumb through it and I guarantee that it will start some interesting conversations.
- The Snowflake: Winter’s Frozen Artistry
- Kenneth Libbrecht & Rachel Wing
- ISBN-13: 9780760348475
- Publisher: Voyageur Press
- Pages: 144 (hardbound)
- Size: 8.3 x 10.10 x 0.8-inches
- Price: $47.90 (Prime,) used starting at $10.99 and $18.83 for Kindle.