Author Guest Post: Nadine Laman

This is a very special post, written by my lovely friend Nadine
(author of the Kathryn's Beach Trilogy, and blogger @ First Draft),
because I'm positive everyone will agree to it.

Whenever I read an E-Book, or hear an Audiobook, I always think of the Printed Book.
That's why if I liked the E-B or AB,
that book goes directly to my To Be Bought List.

Please read this short post.
It speaks nothing but the truth.

Ella

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There was a publishing industry article recently that said typesetters were a dying breed in America. I didn't read the whole article, but I have thought about that for days now.

In this digital world, there is still something special about a printed book. There is something about the feel of the paper, the cover, the texture of the cover that touches the humanity in us in a way that a digital book cannot. As much as I like the sleekness of digital formats, they are separated from us by an electronic device we need to read it.

I have books from the late 1800's and early 1900's. The print is irregular at times, a damaged letter that is distinctive to that particular typesetter's box reoccurs throughout the text, almost as his maker's mark.

Despite the occasional imperfections in the letters, there is almost a liveliness to the pages. Imagine a human hand setting the letters, one by one, for a 70,000 word book. There is a human quality to a paper book, even if undefined, when we touch it - linking us to the person who labored to set the type, or ink the press that put the words on paper or bound the pages together.

I'm just as amazed with Monastic scribes and their ornate calligraphy. I've seen a few of their works in museums, but unlike a printed book, I can't hold them in my hands.

There is something about folding down the corner on the page, marking a special part of a story, a line or two to be read over and over. The feel of a book in hand, no technology needed except, perhaps, reading glasses. So here is a nod and 'thank you' to the typesetters, now and in the past, for what they bring to us through their labors.

Nadine.

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Do you feel the same way?