Technology summarizing books: No 'Need' to 'Read'...

(This blog has been summarized from the original published version by the author)

Photo from Buzzle

 Before the age of the internet, individuals who had little time for books, as well as those who just didn't have the urge or desire to read books, got their stories by watching movies; particularly those that would come out based on books. Today people don't have to necessarily wait for a movie to be released to find out what a book is about. They can just hop on their computer and find a book summary site such as Cliff Notes.  

So the question is, with books as movies and online book summary sites, do people really need to 'read' anymore?

One of my close friends once suggested that I read the book called "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", saying it was a great book, I responded with, "Oh, I was going to watch that movie..." This conversation got me to wondering...does anyone really 'read' anymore, or are we just accustomed to getting the classics and new stories from movies, cliff notes and YouTube clips?

I will admit that I am an avid reader and 'book collector' myself but I do tend to vote on 'watching' a book rather than reading it sometimes. But I also can't wait to see a movie that is based on a favorite read; though I always worry that the film industry will mess up the story, which often happens as in "My Sister's Keeper", where the ending of the book and movie are complete opposites.

Changing books into movies is one of the most common things these days that media arts is doing as per the public demand. People have started liking this idea of watching the movie which is based on a particular book they have already read before. They love to compare it, and always wait for some climax scene to take place so that they can compare their visual imagination with that particular scene in the movie. Some people like it while some don't, and this is because all the aspects and some important points cannot be covered in a movie which is based on a book of about 1000 or more pages.

--As Buzzle.com explains.

I would agree that it's fun to be able to 'watch' a book, but I still think that reading a book allows the reader to fully enter the books' story, mostly because not all details of a book can be put into a movie. In fact, some people may go to a movie and have no idea that there was a book that came first. Lets do an experiment, watch the video below from YouTube and try to see how many books you can identify from the film clips they show. I was able to identify about 5, though I think there are 8 or so in the video.



Another medium that seems to deter individuals from actually reading books is Cliff Notes, a wildly used online database that basically sum up an 800 page novel, or any novel, in just a few pages.

I personally have never used Cliff Notes, but know of many who have. The Digital Nation film that was shown in my Digital Media and Society class explained that "...many students never actually read a novel or any of the classics anymore, and some haven't even read an entire book by the time they graduate from high school...", partially due to the availability of Cliff Notes, and other technological conveniences or distractions; depends how you look at it.  It's sad to think that so many are missing out on such great adventures.

Cliff Notes isn't the only site that provides short and simple book reviews however, there are several others; including: freebooknotes.com, sparknotes, bookwolf, and many more.

Sites like the ones I just listed encourage individuals to simply settle with a brief summary rather than the entire publication, and they aren't afraid to say it, as a quote from the bookwolf website shows:

Welcome to Bookwolf home of our popular brand of FREE literature book notes. Here you will find a wealth of helpful information to guide you to a year full of good grades. What ever happened to the long nights spent reading a good book cuddled on the couch with a loyal pet or favorite blanket? They have become filled with hours on updating photos to facebook, playing video games, or downloading the latest hits from iTunes. The publishing world as a whole is being 'digitalized', 'summarized', 'profitized' and many other types of 'ized'. Back to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I have bought my own copy and will be beginning my full book experience soon. Though an article in a blog on culturemob.com had this to say about the movie: If you haven’t already seen them, it’s also worth checking out the movies of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. They may never quite live up to the books, but all three are good films in their own right. I plan to try to read all three books, then see the subtitled films to get the entire experience.

A recent news story about the Grand Forks bookstore closings. It would be a good source if you were interested in more about the local bookstore closings:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/191062/group/homepage/

Are Bookstores to be a thing of the past?

Like many people I love to read and usually look to my local bookstores to get my new books. I consider myself a sort of 'fun' book collector and currently own roughly 4,000 volumes. However, due to the economy, technology, and changing agendas, future generations may not have the good fortune of going over to their local bookstore to pick up a good read.

I first started noticing the troublesome matter regarding disappearing bookstores about two years ago when the local bookstores in the area started closing.

The Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, N.D. had three brand-name bookstores up until 2009 when they closed their Barnes N’ Noble branch and their Waldenbooks mall branch. In March 2009.

In Dec. 2009, the Waldenbooks mall store in Grand Forks closed, (Waldenbooks is a branch of the Borders Company). On the plus side the store had a 50% off sale as its closing sale and I got a lot of good reads for a great deal and there was still one bookstore in the mall.

Then, in December of 2010, the Grand Forks mall closed their BDalton bookstore, a branch of the Barnes N’ Noble chain, and so Grand Forks now has no new bookstores, only a few small used bookstores scattered throughout the city.
 Fargo, N.D. currently only has a Barnes N’ Noble bookstore, as well as, a few small new and used bookstores that can be found downtown and in various strip malls around the city. Fargo used to have a BDalton Bookstore in the West Acres Shopping Mall but that store was closed in Jan. 2010, right after Waldenbooks closed in Grand Forks.

“Barnes & Noble had operated the UND bookstore for 10 years before it lost its lease in March 2009. Today, the store is called the UND Bookstore and, as before, it carries some new popular book titles. Mostly, however, it devotes its space to textbooks, university clothing and other items.” - http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/188412/

The Bloomington mall also closed it's bookstores, for more information watch the video above.

I find this all very sad as I come from a small town (Hensel, N.D.) about an hour and a half North of Grand Forks, so now, if I was to move back home, the closest new bookstore would be the Barnes N’ Noble here in Fargo N.D.

According to its website, Barnes & Noble is the No. 1 bookseller in the U.S., operating about 1,255 bookstores including 729 superstores and another 635 college bookstores. In North Dakota, there are Barnes & Noble’s in Fargo, Bismarck and Minot.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

If I want to get a book when I am visiting at home it seems that I will have to go online and pay for shipping from one of the many online bookstores that have become popular today. The other closest town to my dad’s farm is Devil’s Lake, which has one small used bookstore and a few thrift stores that sometimes have a good selection of used books.

I blame all these bookstore closings on the web and the new e-readers which began to become popular around 2007, though I may be getting a Kindle for Easter from my mom, so maybe I will think differently when I am part of the mass e-reader club.

Amazon released its first version of the Kindle in November 2007. To give Borders credit, it did manage to quickly follow up by partnering with Sony to sell its e-reader in stores, but it overlooked a prime opportunity to develop its own device.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/20/the-borders-story-is-this-the-final-chapter.html

Now there are many other e-readers other than kindle to choose from as well as applications for the iPad and your computer. At least I will be able to get some books that I have wanted to read that are currently only available to e-readers and are not in print.

About Me

Hi everyone and welcome to my Comm.442 blog about books. This is my test blog to make sure everything is working.
So as a test blog I guess I can tell you a little about me before you start reading my blog.
I am a Senior attending NDSU for a triple major in Journalism, Public Relations, and Natural Resources Management (Environmental Comm emphasis).
I come from a small town. Some of my hobbies include reading, writing, drawing, and gaming.
I am an animal lover and used to raise rabbits, fish, and hamsters. I currently have a dwarf hamster, a mini rex rabbit, a baby red-eared slider turtle, lots of fish (prob about 40 or more between the turtle tank, the 2 Betta bowls, the 10 gallon and the 20 gallon tank), 2 cats, and 3 dogs.
I hope to be a freelance or professional environmental journalist or writer after I graduate. My dream job would be researching, writing about, or working with wolves. I would also like to write some fiction and nonfiction novels someday. Which brings us back to a blog about books...