A note of concern regarding e-books
E-books are convenient and on the surface seem OK, but I've just had a shock with one of them. I'm reading a classic work (I don't want to say which because I'm truly reading it, and I want to keep the project to myself until I finish it), and this time I'm reading it in actual physical book form. A well-made hard back book.
But I have a Kindle reader that is good for reading outside in the sun, so I downloaded an e-book edition of this classic work onto it and found where I was in the book and lo and behold right at that place I noticed the e-book version was very different from my physical book version. The e-book version was missing about three pages of text. To make sure I compared with another physical book edition of the work, and yes, it was the e-book version that was corrupt.
What is even more bothersome about this is the corruption of the e-book version just happened to be found right where I was currently reading in the classic work. What are the odds? It actually probably means there are numerous corruptions in the e-book edition. (And the corruption wasn't obvious. It was between paragraphs.)
This is something we don't want to think about. Like buying fast food. We want to assume it's OK. Yet there are no paid editors pouring over e-book editions to make sure they are correct and then to make sure they render correctly. They obviously are generally just thrown together relying on the software to get it right, and assuming the file is correct to begin with.
What to do? Abandon all e-book versions? I think not. I think it's OK to read them for certain types of books. Also, e-books produced by the same publisher of the physical version are probably superior products (yeah, sure, let's go with that), but for absolute classic works I might as a rule opt for a good physical edition of the book. Just to be sure.
2 Comments:
Yes I’m in agreement. If a book is really important I now purchasing a hardcopy version. The digital version is good for searching, so invariably I may buy that as well. you’ve mentioned problems that happen perhaps by accident, in this environment I wouldn’t put it past publishers to change and manipulate words and stories to suit their narrative. I just have no confidence in the digital versions anymore.
W.
Some e-books are like photo copies of the actual pages of the hard copy book with original page numbers. They can be searched too. I like those e-books. They seem more real and stable. I know it's a larger file and you can't change the font, but I'd take those trade-offs.
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