After Roro's recent binge on literature about the late 1800's, I, too, have been re-reading the "Little House" books. For some reason, I didn't retain the whole series from my childhood (I only had By The Shores of Silver Lake and Little Town on the Prairie in my library; Roro contributed Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods), so we ordered the rest from Indigo. I had wanted to order used copies from Amazon, but none of the vendors who had them shipped from inside Canada -- so the shipping and duty would be $5 to $15 while the book itself cost $1.17. Didn't make a lot of sense.
My re-reading of the books that I have in my library has been a wonderful experience. I remember what it was like to read them as a young girl. The emotions are as fresh as they were when I was 5 or 7 or 12. I loved the same things and hated the same things -- some even more so now because I totally realise what a little priss Mary was.
Ahem.
Now I'm a bit of a cheapskate, so when I was ordering, I chose the least expensive copy of the four books we were missing. Surprisingly, there were not pictures of these books but I figured, "Hey, they can't possible screen in every cover, can they?" and thought nothing more of it.
A few days later a package arrived from Indigo. When I went downstairs to pick it up, it seemed very small. Hmm ... the order confirmation said they sent them all at once. But how did they fit 5 books in here (I also ordered a bio of Laura Ingalls Wilder written in 1977 by Donald Zochert. It has this great back cover that shows Laura in her teen years looking like a romantic novel heroine with some pretty serious cleavage. I believe it was this cover that precipitated my conversion to lovin' the ladies.).
Anyway ... trusting in the good people at Indigo, I opened up the package. Out fell all 5 of my books, but they were pocket paperback versions, not the "kid size" paperbacks that we had of the others. But more distressingly, they weren't illustrated! I love Garth Williams' illustrations of the Little House Series -- his sketches really made the books come alive for me. But, I thought, "OK, no big deal. You'll still enjoy the books. In fact, look, the type is smaller and closer together -- it will probably be easier for you to read. Besides, you're 36. If you haven't figured out what Laura is trying to say by now, Williams' illustrations probably aren't going to help."
Comforting myself with these thoughts and some chocolate, I settled down to read On the Banks of Plum Creek. What I realised that not only is the type smaller, but it is a totally different font.
Now, this is no way impacts the readablilty of the books, but, the emotional recall and sense memory experience I have of reading these books as a child amd that I had been experiencing for the first few books has now been completely removed from my ongoing re-reading of them.
To the left are two images of the text from These Happy Golden Years (I have totally taken screen caps of Amazon's "Look Inside The Book" technology. Thank you Amazon for allowing me to illustrate this point!) The first is from the original "kid size" paperback (although this one is not the original cover that I have). The ilustration is Williams'. I don't know what font this is, but I find it very friendly and comforting.
The second is from the Pocket Paperback version (which is erroneously listed as being illustrated by Williams). Aside from having a terribly cheesy romance novel cover, the font (to me anyway) is pointy and sharp.
Now I'm not a typographer (though I would love to play one on TV), so maybe there really isn't a difference in these (if you are a typographer and can tell me, that would be great; there isn't a colophon in the books, unfortunately). But the visceral sense memory is completely non-existent when reading the second.
Which leads me to wonder about the future of books, of reading, of ebooks, etc. Well, really, of the rendered word in general. How many of you specify your font preferences in your browser? I do. And if so some reason My Yahoo appears in a different font, I get totally disoriented. The information can be in the same locale, but the delivery mechanism -- the shape, size, curve of the letters -- when it's different, it's impact is felt.