Four Things I Miss From the Golden Age of Paperbacks

[james_davis_nicoll]

In which I wax nostalgic for the magical time when mass-market paperbacks ruled the shelves.

Four Things I Miss From the Golden Age of Paperbacks

Comments

[james_davis_nicoll]

Tor dot com article 473, 2024 article 18.

27 articles to go to article 500

[violsva]

I do miss the back-of-book ads for other books, but this has occasionally persisted into ebook editions.

They don't include a form to send with cheque or money order to (address) anymore, though.

[mecurtin]

I miss being able to make my own proofreading corrections as I go.

Mr Dr Science & I were talking about how Ace (in particular, but it wasn't just them) would have blocks of text out of place, and we learned to do forensic editing to reconstruct the stories. Which meant drawing diagrams on the pages to show how the bits should go.

[petrea_mitchell]

A thumb drive full of e-books just doesn't smell the same as shelf full of paperbacks.

[patrick_morris_miller]

Alas, the best-smelling books are the ones that are slowly destroying themselves due to acidic paper.

[neowolf2]

So, what you're saying is we need scented thumb drives.

[scott_sanford]

No... but yes.

[dagibbs]

Price. MMPBs were far more affordable for paper that I actually owned than any paper books currently available.

ebooks that I can actually buy and own (rather than license and lose at the distributors whim) are often reasonably priced, but the selection is more restricted.

R-value. Book-shelves with many many books on exterior walls are definitely contributing to the insulation in my house. ebooks just don't insulate as well.

[ba_munronoe]

"ebooks that I can actually buy and own (rather than license and lose at the distributors whim) are often reasonably priced, but the selection is more restricted."

very much my feeling. The preferred model for stuff you access on line is not ownership but paying a perpetual rent - for something you may lose anyway if the distributor doesn't feel it's profitable enough or if they go out of business.

[dragoness_e]

If you've bought it and downloaded it, nothing is stopping you from cracking the DRM and storing a copy offline or otherwise converting into a form that can't be taken away.

[ba_munronoe]

"cracking the DRM"

No idea how to do that. Info?

[timill]

https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/drm-removal-tools-for-ebooks/

So far as I know, the latest Amazon Kindle encryption has not been cracked, but this will do most other things.

No naughty reselling things now...

[dragoness_e]

That link is somewhat out-of-date (those old versions of DeDRM are obsolete and won't work anymore). Try here, instead: https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/wiki/Exactly-how-to-remove-DRM

apprenticeharper isn't maintaining the DeDRM plugin anymore, but he appears to be keeping the wiki up to date, and linked to the current maintainer, NoDRM.

DRM-removal tools and DRM-enforcement software are in a constant race to defeat each other, unfortunately.

[felila]

On my old laptop, Calibre plus plugin work to deDRM books. The same version of Calibre (an old one) and the same plugin will not work on my revived desktop. I suspect that the problem might be due to the change from Win10 (laptop) to Win11 (desktop). If anyone has any solutions, please contact me :/

Braxis

[(Anonymous)]

The deDRM tools will work on any Kindle file published before 2023, anything that came out after that is a problem.

At some point I'm planning to see if Kobo books can be released and transferred to my Kindle easily. In the UK at least, Kobo seems to track Amazon pricing. If it's on sale at Amazon, it's on sale for Kobo too.

Re: Braxis

[james_davis_nicoll]

Calibre appears to be able to turn epub into mobi files.

Re: Braxis

[(Anonymous)]

I should have done it with my recent purchase of Red Side Story. It does tone down the hit of instant gratification though.

I'll try it out when I buy my next up to date book!

[dragoness_e]

Do you use Adobe Digital Editions for your DRM, or is this Kindle DRM? The newer Kindles might not be crackable yet. The easiest way I know of is to use the DeDRM plugin with Calibre, and it does require some setup, as you are, obviously, abusing the software intended to enforce your DRM in ways the company never intended. See the DeDRM tools wiki below:

https://github.com/apprenticeharper/DeDRM_tools/wiki/Exactly-how-to-remove-DRM

[(Anonymous)]

DRM technology and law are pretty much exactly stopping you from making backup copies of e-books. In practice, you might get around one, and ignore the other. But... Already, document copiers won't copy money. And printers encode the identity of the person printing a document. It would be possible for cameras to be made that can't photograph copyrighted text, or better still - for publishers - any text.

How these technologies serve totalitarian government, if you think you don't already live under one, is best not to speak of and give them free ideas. For that work I want to be paid at least. Books are expensive. :-)

Robert Carnegie

[scott_sanford]

As usual, there's an xkcd for that...

[maruad]

It is still all paperbacks (with the rare hardcover) in my household. Well at least for my wife and myself. I suspect my kids no longer buy them. One kid seems to exclusively read self published stuff off the internet.

[scott_sanford]

It may be pointless to suggest, but it's a good idea for the kid to download anything particularly good to local storage. Anything that's out on the web now could be off the web tomorrow.

[bolindbergh]

Which is why I've spent considerable effort since the turn of the century on software that automatically scrapes webcomics and assembles local archives.

[scott_sanford]

That is an excellent idea. I have a vast collection of individual strips but few or no complete runs of anything. Is this a thing that's known to be out on the web anywhere?

[bolindbergh]

All home-grown and not in a publishable state, I'm afraid.

[scott_sanford]

Ah, I see. Well, it was worth asking.