True. And the great thing is that you can have it for as long as GlobalMegaCorp says you can. Even better, it’ll only costs a few dollars more than the dead tree for that privilege. 
(Kindle version - $17. Dead Tree - $12.87)
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The schedule i originally suggested was just an example, I didn’t think we were actually following it. I certainly haven’t started reading the book yet - not that I can’t read the chapter by then, but I was waiting for people to get their books before actually settling on a schedule.
But, if we’re going with this, would it be simpler to have the deadline always be Friday? Deadline for Chapter 1 is on the 13th (oh mi god, it Friday the 13th!), deadline for Chapter 2 is 20th, for Chapter 3 the 27th and so on.
Also, I think we should all start discussing at the same time and only create the thread for the discussion on the day of the deadline. That way, everyone starts at the same “level” in the discussion.
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Library electronic version. - $0. Apart from all those taxes and stuff.
In the meantime, here’s the quarry I grew up having on my doorstep (well, almost).
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Philip Glass - Einstein On The Beach (Théâtre du Châtelet):
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And can never be donated to a library or hospital.
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Bwah hah hah hah. Why don’t you just use cat?
Confession: while I did read Banks’ The Algebraist this way, I’ve got a dead-tree for The Quarry.
Those sort of landscape lines always remind me of Hundertwasser.
As for the latter, I guess it depends on the market.
And, it seems, it also depends on the day. Here’s today’s quote for the States:
As for the donation angle, well, I gots waaaay too many of those candidates floating around already. Time to drop off a consignment!
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When I am done reading it, I am more concerned with not having this thing sitting around the house for 3 months waiting to go to the used bookstore where I’d get less back for it than I saved buying the Kindle ebook. I can, likely, also read the book again if Amazon doesn’t decide to steal all my digital books because it wants to have them ALL (sounds more like Google.)
Also note the whole train is hung up on a dead tree moving slowly through time and space. I somehow doubt Mindy is waiting for the download.
BOOK CLUB ERUPTS INTO EREADER VS PAPERBOOKS WAR! NEWS AT 11!
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A million times this. I’ve got so many books to unload that I’m taking pictures of them and asking my friends if they want any. Until I get rid of all the books I need to, I’m not buying another dead tree edition of anything.
Books on magic, cooking, manuals, etc I like on paper. Fiction for now is for the e-reader. I have a lot of treasured paper fiction, it is stuff I like to a) look at the cover art or b) want to make sure I re-read someday or c) actively use.
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Yeah, I’ve got my criteria for what can stay in paper too. 
Something like 80% of what I currently own in paper, I’ll never touch again except to dust or get rid of.
My copies of the Elder and Poetic Edda, I Ching, one copy of Ulysses, Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Pratchett, and Ursula K. Leguin can stay along with two books bought for me by a dear friend who passed a few years back. Just about anything else is going when I get around to it.
For regular manuals, I plan to scan them in if I can’t find them in PDF format.
I also have about 10-20 books I bought I found them intrinsically hilarious (or friends bought them because they knew I would). For example, I have a dictionary of every computer virus that existed at the time Dr. Solomon’s decided to publish it. It’s a relatively thin manual. It still cracks me up every time I see that book.
I don’t want to throw these away per se but I no longer wish to be their curator.
One of those which isn’t quite hilarious but still falls into this category is a book that talks about the idea of hypertext which predates what we would consider PCs by a fair bit. According to this book, hypertext as a concept was originally meant to be an interface for hopping around microfiche. The edition I have is biggish paperback that looks like it was a cheap college textbook at one point.
On the off chance that someone wants those, I’ll post about it whenever I’ve put them in a cohesive pile (they’re spread out around my library presently).
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I’ll pick it up tomorrow and can start reading it tomorrow night.
@jlw DEAD TREE VERSION FOREVER!!!
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QFT
Also, library versions forever! Mostly because I have no money, but also because libraries are like my second home, my little hiding place where I can feel like I belong.
I actually don’t know how I feel about e-books - I haven’t got a device to read them on anyway. I love having an actual book in my hands, being able to smell it, and if I’m lucky actually having it sit on my shelf. At the same time, I think e-books are the future and with a good enough device (that feels natural and doesn’t hurt my eyes) I’ll probably someday start using them.
But, three days until Friday the 13th, the deadline is near. I still haven’t started to read, I don’t know why, starting a new book always feels daunting and I have so much going on in my personal and school life that I just feel confused. But I’ll read it by Friday, I’m sure of it.
Also, is 12:00pm GMT/UTC an okay deadline time for you all? I know that’s early morning for you USians and evening for Australians, but I can’t think of a better time (any suggestions?). That would be the time on Friday when we would create the thread for discussion on Chapter 1.
I suspect you might use them the way I do: in addition to dead-trees, rather than instead of them. Part of my reasoning was practical: I still have plenty of paper books that I simply haven’t read yet. Part of it’s tactile: I, too, love the feel and experience of reading ink on paper. But I also read a whole lotta crap. Now, many of my books I want to keep. I have the complete collection of Discworld books, and I plan to read them all again and again and also look forward to watching my kids enjoy them too, so there’s no reason to get rid of those books. But I also own almost all of the Star Wars Expanded Universe books published between 1991 and 2001, and even though plenty of them are perfectly fun (The Rogue and Wraith Squadron ones in particular), most of 'em are crap. I still read crap, but now I generally buy my crap on the Kindle, to preserve space for respectable volumes in my meat-and-paperspace world.
I have no compelling preference for paper-only or electronic-only, simply because the act of reading alone is the important part for me. If nothing else is available, I’ll read shampoo bottle labels in the restroom.
Well, I assume you mean noon rather than midnight, but I can’t earn my Pedant Pendant without pointing out that straight-up noon (or midnight) is neither AM nor PM. I avoid confusion by using 12:01, if I have to indicate a specific deadline time near noon or midnight and I don’t feel like actually writing out “noon” or “midnight.”
My only quibble is exceedingly minor, and not actually a personal quibble from my perspective. I’m one of those who mostly Boings at work, since weekends are taken up by family obligations. If the discussion begins right at the beginning of the weekend, some folks might possibly be unable to hop in until Monday. Like me, if I lived much farther east than I do. As it happens, I’ll have all day Friday to discuss, so it works perfectly fine for me.
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Yeah, that sounds like how I will do it as well eventually. I see no reason to prefer one over the other entirely. Also, I don’t know if it’s done, but if you could get an e-book with the regular physical copy for the same price (or maybe for like an euro more), I would love that and probably get an e-reader as soon as possible. You could read any particular book the way you want, you could give the physical copies away if they’re not very good yet still have a version that takes no space, you could take as many books with you on a vacation but when you’re at home on your favorite spot (couch, bed, hammock etc.) you could immerse yourself fully, with all your senses, in that object that is made out of dead trees.
But I have a feeling (and please tell me if I’m wrong, because I want to be wrong) that most book companies and retailers wouldn’t want to do that. Because all they would think of is: “Two copies for the the price of one? Are you insane? 
”
I actually googled the proper way of telling the time with the 12-hour clock (because I use the much more sensible 24-hour clock), and found that it’s either “12 noon” or “12 PM”. I went with 12PM, though now I don’t know why because that has been always the thing that confuses me the most about the 12-hour clock and I should’ve made myself as clear as possible. But anywhooo.
I thought about that and came to the conclusion that more people will be more available for BoingBoinging during the weekend than during the week. Of course, if that’s not the case in our group, we can change the starting date. We’ll have a whole week to discuss, of course, but it would be nice if as many people as possible could start discussing at the same time, instead of half of us jumping in after half a week.
I’m starting to feel like I’m putting way too much thought into micro-managing and organizing this book thingie, while everyone else is just discussing matters a bit aad chillaxing whilöe getting exactly the same amount of actual problem solving done. This is what I always do and it drives me crazy. Someone stop me!
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Woo! I wonder what’s the status for @aeon?
In any case, I’ll create a discussion thread for the first chapter this Friday at 12:00 noon GMT. I can’t wait! I’m so excited. 
Also, here’s the list of current members just so everyone gets “paged”:
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You’re doing an excellent job, and I apologize for only making it more micromanaged!
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The sheep-powered hobbit postmen have yet to bring me my book. 
Worse yet, my enforced idleness is at an end and I’ve returned to full time work to find people have been saving problems just for me. So I’m suddenly short of time. 
I think you’ll have to carry on without me.
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