And though I love reading things on FR, when it comes to books and mags, give me the real thing.
But I love my hard copies better.
I do a lot of cross-referencing back into a book I currently read...not so much for novels but for non-fiction. I will never find this convenient with an e-reader.
However, I DO LOVE my e-reader for light reading, travel, and to have in my bag whenever I have a few minutes on a park bench to fill.
The present argument is that the buyer is only getting a license and that is not transferable to the estate. Ditto for if you store your photo's in some “cloud” server.
Like all the adverts for gold - nothing beats tangible assets.
I like being able to download books for free. I also like having a solution to the eternal problem of adequate lighting. However, I get sick of staring at screens all the time.
Also, why would you burn existing books? That’s just a stupid headline.
The reason books are better than e-books is because of bookstores. Here’s an experiment any reader can do: when you’re having a bad day go to a bookstore, on another bad day click on Amazon. There’s nothing like the feeling of walking into a bookstore, except maybe walking into a liquor store, just going in feels good. Amazon and other sources of e-books might be more convenient and cheaper, but they’ll never give you that high. I work across the street from a Barnes & Noble, it’s my primary work day stress relief.
Does anyone have a best recommendation for a basic cheap e-reader for borrowing library books?
My experience is that e-books work best for books you intend to read straight through from beginning to end, like a novel. Reference books and non-ficton books you know you will be referring to from time to time in the future don’t work so well and are better purchased as a traditional book.
I've read studies that indicate folks of my generation and older who were raised with books (personal desktops were just starting to come into widespread use during my college years), retain far more information when read off a printed page than we do reading of a monitor screen. That trend seems to be inverting itself with younger generations, as one might expect.
From my cold, dead ink smudged hands.
Print books cannot be deleted off my machine or updated to a more PC edition regardless of what I want. I can by a politically incorrect print edition and give it away anonymously - files are tracked.
Ray Bradbury poses the scenereo; All books are banned and the threat of losing knowledge becomes real.
People adept at memorizing, memorize passages or all of the classics and live in the forest, reciting what they know/remember.
Fast foeward to now ... and we are made aware of the re-writing of history and if no one remembers or keeps a copy or record of the original, in time we lose the past, no longer able to refence the past, ...
too horrible to imaging.
I often utilize Low-Power Persistent Papyrus High-Resolution Display versions of books, and also often use an e-reader.
Ah, books!
No battery is required.
No software that continually updates automatically, or has a big blinkie reminding you of such, with cost.
You can always put a REAL bookmark in a place, close the cover, and come back later, open the cover, and not wait for the reader to initialize.
If you drop it, it is never broken.
You may still acquire an author of choice’s autograph, and not one that has been programmed into the interface.
There are NO advertisements to interrupt your reading pleasure.
You cannot dog-ear an electronic page, no matter how you try!
A crumb of food, or drop of drink, might well end your electronic reading pleasure, but not print, it just gains character.
You cannot actually ‘highlight’ pages in an electronic book, as you may in print.
You can ALWAYS find a buyer for a print book, whereas electronic viewing material is never YOUR’S to sell!
Printed books can become heirlooms.
“Whats wi’d d’is guy an’ his books???”
Let’s just say that, I have enough to keep me going, for instance:
1. All the ‘Dirty harry’ adventures in paperback.
2. The continually growing collection of one Ms. Kim Harrison’s ‘Hollows’ adventures, in both hardback and paperback.
3. Most of Robert E. Howard’s works.
4. All of Ian Fleming’s works, and a few of the wanna-be’s, as well.
5. Works of Zane Grey.
6. Works of Rex Stout.
7. Works of Robert B. Parker.
8. The few works in print concerning a certain short-stutured Los Angeles Homicide lieutenant, with a very old car.
I have my “have read” and “yet to read” bookshelves, don’t worry!
The higher profits from the digital books have made print books more feasible economically. Production costs were killing them before the e-book came along.
I’ve never even touched an e-book device. Let them continue to subsidize my hardcovers and stay away from me.
Why? Because my reading habit is so engrained into me that I cannot now store ALL of the books I read. (I still have just about every hard copy book I've ever owned and I've run out of room.) That is why I love me Kindle Fire (But I think I would have been happier with just a plain Kindle the fire is just a little uncomfortable to hold with just one hand)
So now I go crazy with eBooks BUT when I run across a book I really Like I would love to have a nice leather bound copy with archival quality paper and gilt edging and a sewn in silk book mark and would be willing to pay premium for such. But I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices for a new standard Hardback being they are so poorly manufactured now. I wait till I can find them in the bargain bins or remaindered tables. And I hate paperbacks especially TRADE paperbacks which are just an excuse to get more money for a paperback copy.
I love e-books for traveling and being on the go especially. So much easier than carrying a ton of reading material with me everywhere. I tend to use my Bible on the Kindle a lot too. I still love my actual books though. There’s a lot of books I still buy and keep on my bookshelf. Amazon has a ton of free books/apps and often for the “fluff” reads I tend to just do the e-book thing.
How things will look when we are all gone is another matter, that's harder to speculate about.
If civilization lasts, CD's will be long gone, replaced by something else -- if they haven't already been.
Books will still be around, but as quaint and old-timey relics.
Maybe like sheet music or player piano rolls -- still around but not selling in anything like the numbers it did earlier.
“Print is here to stay,” unless we want all publicly available knowledge to disappear in a disaster (e.g., EMP strikes).
ereaders give me a headache, print books don’t.