Skip to main content

News

  • Welcome to DeepThought!  Make yourself at home!

Topic: Physical Books or eBooks? (Read 532 times) previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
  • oblivion
  • [*][*][*][*][*]
  • Administrator
Physical Books or eBooks?
As a writer (if you are) and a reader, which do you prefer, and why?  If you like eBooks for some things and physical books for other things, what are those things and why?

Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #1
I like paper. Have read some stuff on my phone, which is fine and dandy very handy with the right material. Short stories seem fine, so are papers and whatnot, but for novels it has to be paper. Likewise classics of any kind, can't imagine reading The Iliad on a device.

Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #2
e-books, but on an e-ink type of screen only, not a backlit screen.  I like being able to adjust the font size, and the kindle is a lot more convenient than paper books are.  Plus, new books in an instant.

The exception would be for stuff with a lot of diagrams or illustrations, or that I'll be flipping back and forth in.

  • oblivion
  • [*][*][*][*][*]
  • Administrator
Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #3
For travel/vacation I like physical books and not needing to worry about keeping a device charged.  The last 2 or 3 years I think about 90% of my reading has been on my laptop or 7" google tablet.  I like being able to zoom and search.  Backlighting doesn't bother me.  I'd rather have the flexibility of a full tablet, and definitely don't want another device to keep track of, carry cables for, etc when I'm on the move.

I have soooo many linear feet devoted to shelved books.  More than anything, the thought of finding more shelf space encourages me to go the ebook route.


Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #4
The charging thing used to be an issue for me, but the kindle (one of the paperwhites, I don't recall the model)  have now holds a charge for about a week, and uses the same cord as my cell phone. 

Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #5
e-books.  Can't see myself ever buying a paper book again.

Happy to read either on laptop or phone (larger screen phone).  I like being able to read in the wee hours without having to turn a light on.

Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #6
It depends on the book.  I don't think e-books work well for non-fiction, not if you need to flick back and forth quite a bit.  Also for meatier fiction books (like War and Peace!) where again you might find yourself flicking back to remind yourself of who a character is. 

I have a kindle and it's mainly got easier reads on. 

Re: Physical Books or eBooks?
Reply #7
e-books.  Instant gratification, cheaper price point, and being able to adjust the lighting and font is important to me.  For travel and vacation especially, as I used to lug around a significant amount of weight in books and now all I need is my Kindle.

The only exception is for things with a lot of pictures, diagrams, something like that.  Those don't work well on the kindle.

 
http://mcfrye.com/deepthought/index.php?topic=14.0
mcfrye.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2017-47
44097
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:JKQBZCHOOD2PIYR62LUOBVRFIVHZZ4VU
<urn:uuid:6b468d84-c26c-429a-adc0-4c436538e425>
2017-11-19T00:53:34Z
173.248.191.136
text/html
sha1:WLBNFVXVYEBOYOM3J3IXUJGRJAKIFTTU
<urn:uuid:5a0cc096-f0ff-4267-8142-8c1efa4bb6fe>
http://mcfrye.com/deepthought/index.php?topic=14.0
response
<urn:uuid:255f14fb-e439-4a36-bb98-44559e6c2846>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-99-209-250.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2017-47
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for November 2017
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf