You know, for some time, I've worried about the (possible) death of browsing as a way to learn about new books. The main reason, of course, is the Internet. Most of the time, when we're looking for books on the Internet, we're concerned with making (what librarians would call) precision searches. We're usually looking for a particular book by a particular author.
The question is, is this limiting our reading universe? Are we suffering a lack of knowledge of other books due to our ability to find particular titles without browsing other ones and making serendipitous choices about them?
I'd make the same argument for news reading. We can get our news delivered by email now (on topics we choose to monitor), and this eliminates the need to browse through the newspaper. But what are we missing out on because we haven't run across the random item that sparks our (unexpected) interest as we browse for the ones of most interest? (That's why I continue to get the Sunday paper delivered, no matter what.)
The other enemy of browsing is time. We all feel rushed these days. And it takes time to get in your car, go to a bookstore or library and browse through the shelves. (Time and gas, unless you ride a bike, in which case it takes even more time.) Our modern world and the Internet provides us so much information, which we have so little time to consume, it already feels like there's no time to do this.
However, even the hardest working person deserves some leisure now and then. So, spend your precious time doing something fun. Like having coffee with a friend. Or browsing the shelves of a library or bookstore. Or doing both. It'll be worth it. And your local librarian and bookstore owner will thank you.
This post was inspired by a similar one on The Reader's Advisor Online.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
Oh, I don't know. I learned a while back to browse the internet for books. I stopped going to the bookstore, mostly because I could find far more books that I wanted--easier, than by browsing my small, local B&N.
I use Amazon's "People who bought" and their tagged searches. I've even searched on an editor's name because I found that I liked books she edited!
In the end I find most of my books through forums. I used to be a reviewer over at BookSpotReview--another way I found lots of good books!
Yes, you can technically browse online. But don't you think it tends to be a more "focused" kind of browsing? Like browsing through "tagged" books would lead you to a certain genre or searching for an editor would direct you only to the books that editor worked on.
When I'm in a bookstore, sometimes I'll see a book that has an intriguing cover or title or is by an author I might have heard of, but never read. Something "out of the blue" will make me pick the book up and read the back cover. Seems a bit more serendipity is involved in the process.
There's nothing wrong with a more focused approach per se. (I tend to rely on my Page-a-Day calendar book recs, plus family/friend recs and books people talk about on lists I'm on.) It's just not like "old school" browsing where you glide past shelves at random and just look them over without a specific title, genre or author in mind. This way you can run across gems you never expected.
Post a Comment