eBooks vs Paper Books

[SyAn]

I am having a hard time reading long pieces of text on the computer. I'm ok for articles, but books . . . I love reading books, and I see the advantage of having a great number available at your fingertips (pardon the pun), especially when traveling, but I just cannot get into it the same way as with a paper book.
How do you prefer reading?

 

[anthoskate]

I like ebooks just because you can carry so many books in one device. Although I do like the smell of new books and you don't have to be so worried about dropping a book or having to charge them.

 

[SameStars]

Paper books. I love the feeling of holding an actual book, Ebooks just aren't the same.

 

[Cerulean]

I love both. I keep my Kindle on me because it fits nicely in my purse, and I'm currently reading the complete Sherlock Holmes, which is suuuuuuper long, but takes up almost no space when I read on the go. I do still buy and read paper books at home, but I enjoy the portability of an e-reader.

 

[King_Oni]

I don't like paper books and I never have. Ever since I got a tablet I actually started reading anything beyond the occasional rulebook for board/tabletop games I play. I never even bothered with comics before either... so tablets are great for me.

Books take up a lot of space IMO and I rather just have a tablet with a bunch of books. Also, considering that I have some light sensitivity issues, I tend to set my eBooks to white on black print, so it does make it less straining on my eyes.

I don't like the smell of books in general (but there are plenty of smells I don't like that much) so I often feel like a library was an attack on my senses... common sense the least likely one to be attacked tough, lol.

 

[wyverary]

For me, it's a mix of both. eBooks have the advantage of intant gratification, and the built-in dictionary is nice...but I've found that simple things like highlighting and bookmarking and such are more easily done with traditional books. Plus, now that I have a smartphone, I have a dictionary on hand anyway. I pretty much stopped using my Kindle a couple years back when I started working at a bookshop and get a generous employee discount. The problem is, I have run out of shelf space, so there are literally piles of books on my desk, on top of filled bookshelves, etc...

I've found it really hard to read on my iPad 2, and to boot, like Stephen Thompson of NPR, I don't trust "the cloud."

 

[Daniel]

Maybe I'll save up for a Kindle or a tablet or something like that... I like being able to have a big library of e-books at my disposal. But right now I can only read them on my phone or my PC, and I like reading during my commute.

I really like reading paper books, but I'm not crazy about lugging them around in my bag and having them get crumpled or the pages falling out. And the worst part about paper books--moving them. I like having a big library, but I hate having to pack it up and unpack it again. I'm in an apartment right now, and I know I'll be moving from here eventually.

I've got an unread paperback of William Gaddis's The Recognitions that's over 900 pages long. I'm going to need a bigger bag!

 

[Anon88]

For me it depends. I find Ebooks more convenient and it's cool that you can have tons of books on one device. There have been times where I wasn't able to get through a paper book because I kept falling asleep but I was able to get through the ebook version just fine. But since then I've reverted back to paper books. I never thought I'd miss them but I kinda got sick if ebooks. Sometimes there's a glitch or technological problem that just makes it undesirable. And surprisingly I actually missed the feel of a real book.

 

[Randomperson]

For some inexplicable reason e-books have even more raw spelling errors and wrong uses of words then paper editions, how can that be? Do they not use spell check and proof read e-books?!

 

[SyAn]

I would love to work as a proof reader - only for "good" books though

 

[AsheSkyler]

I prefer a paper and ink book. There's no replacing thumbing through pages that don't require a battery to be read. But, I do have an ereader and I do keep a lot of books on it when I'm out and about. It's a bit more resilient than a paperback.

 

[Etzelaire]

Paperback books cannot be replaced. I enjoy stocking all the books I read so far in shelves so I can take a look at them and recall the sensations they bring to me when I read them. Sometimes I feel happier while reading than in real life.

 

[wyverary]

I will say, the one thing I love about my Kindle, is free access to any book in the Project Gutenberg library.

 

[dragonwolf]

like Stephen Thompson of NPR, I don't trust "the cloud."

So much this! I do like the idea of eBooks, and even have a few, but largely only if I can ensure I can save an unrestricted copy of it. I bought the gorram book, it should be mine to do with as I please, just like if I bought a dead-tree version, and I sure as hell shouldn't have to worry whether or not it will actually still be available to me or whether the retailer pulled it for whatever reason. (That said, as a technologist, I know all too well why they aren't like that, but it still annoys me.)

For some inexplicable reason e-books have even more raw spelling errors and wrong uses of words then paper editions, how can that be? Do they not use spell check and proof read e-books?!

There's less overhead to get an ebook out than there used to be for a print book. You'll see the same lower quality from other self-publishing places, too. With a big publishing house, though, there's a ton of overhead and hoops and whatnot to go through to get a book printed, so there's incentive to make damn sure as much is correct as feasibly possible. This also changes the author side of the market, and opens it up to more people in general, and not everyone does well with proofreading (though everyone should arguably have a separate person review their work for such things, because it's a known thing to have "blind spots" in one's own work).

 

[Licorice]

I misplace books all the time, but I'm attached at the hip to my devices.

 

[113]

I prefer paper. Check out this article.

 

[ExplosiveTMT]

I prefer good-old paper books.
Can't be bothered with trying to figure out how to set up kindle.

 

[epath13]

Electronic books of any kind! It's hard for me to read most paper ones. I like kids books though (well designed ones) - small amount of sentences on a page, spacing is good (I believe that's the right word to use ), letters are large enough and they have pictures but honestly, when computer came into my life it became a lifesaver. Reading and typing on computer doesn't cause as much stress as hand writing and reading from paper sources.

 

[Cali Cat]

Paper books most definitely. You can't line a shelf with e-books.

 

[photoaddict]

I like both about equally. Each has advantages. I really love that Amazon has a deal for some books where you can buy the book and get a Kindle copy with it for very little. That allows me to access it on my iPad when carrying a book isn't a great option, as well as accessing the various note-taking features in Kindle. (I prefer not to write in books.)