Broadly speaking, I prefer reading in print to reading online.
Vollmann certainly has his followers, and I won't argue against the judgment of his publishers, but I prefer reading his work in short bursts.
I prefer reading e-books on a high resolution LCD screen — like the iPod Touch's — although the pixel density could and should be much higher.
A poster sways above one narrow old street, quoting Logan Pearsall Smith: "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading".
– Introduction to US paperback editions of A Dark Adapted Eye and A Fatal Inversion Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
For a long time, my favorite Barnes line came from the protagonist of his first novel, "Metroland," who sums up his youthful aestheticism this way: "Some people say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading".
When I think of him in this vein, I remember him one day snatching from my mantelpiece a bookmark, on which was inscribed Logan Pearsall Smith's remark "People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading".
I like providing constructive criticism to newer poets, and following my favourite Movellians as they publish newer pieces," says Smith. "I've never really bought poetry from a bookshop; I prefer reading novels in books, and I've never found any poetry in my local shops.
There are a few other poets whose poems I prefer reading, but none whom I think of as combining such talent with such magnificent human qualities: his kindness, courage, good humour, exuberance, truthfulness and cleverness coalesce in the kind of adult wisdom it would be wonderful to find in a person of any age, and which seems not much short of miraculous in someone who died aged 26.
