Posted on 04/25/2021 12:25:16 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Much hullabaloo was made of being able to read books electronically, such as on Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.
For a while, I became an ardent adopter of the concept. I would download my books to read electronically. For a few years, I would do most of my reading this way. But it never did feel the same as the tactile experience of reading a physical book.
I'm one who like to flip back a few pages to re-read or to reference the maps and what not in the beginning of the book. It was always cumbersome to do this electronically. Technically you are able to move around the book in electronic fashion but for me, it was always a clumsy affair. You end up fussing around with it for way too long while running down your battery.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned. But now I'm back on the train to work with a physical book and my Kindle is gathering dust in my laptop case along with the thumb USB drives that I have basically stopped using as well.
Call me old-fashioned but I just like the book experience better.
I like real books for all the reasons others have mentioned. However, there is one big thing that I like about reading an e-book (I use my Apple iphone to do it, using their Books app). If there’s a word I don’t know, or a place I’m not familiar with, I can easily and very quickly click on the word and then “look-up” and it gives me a definition, or explanation of where the place is, etc. So I read both types.
If you have a tablet from Apple or Samsung, you can download the Kindle app from the respective app store.
You can also use your desktop or laptop computer to read, by logging in to your Amazon account. If you’re new to Kindle, I would recommend starting this way, before you get a a Fire tablet or Kindle reader. There are PLENTY of free, or out of copyright books available to read.
Also, get on the BookBub mailing list, and check ALL the reading interest categories. You’ll get a daily e-mail of 6-10 titles, most only a few dollars. If don’t see anything of interest today, delete the e-mail.
I prefer books but I read voraciously, five or six books at a time, finishing three or four a week. I simply cannot afford to feed my reading habit with printed books, whereas there are tens of thousands of free or cheap books available on my Nook.
I agree, especially for nonfiction. I do like e-books for mysteries and light novels to read in bed or take along on a trip. Also, a few of the books on my reading list have been available only as ebooks.
great information. Thank you. I just bought a galaxy phone and samsung had a list of ‘free’ items to choose from as part of the purchase and I chose a tablet. I haven’t even opened it yet but if it can do what I understand you are saying, I will get into it.
Tried using a friend’s e-reader. Once. I’m a very fast reader. Having to constantly scroll the text drove me nearly insane. Especially so when I wanted to skip back a few paragraphs (or a few pages) to re-read something. Much of my reading is either technical or it’s histories, so I do that a lot. At the end of the weekend I handed it back with thanks, and have never touched one since. The only thing I might try to read on a screen now would be comic books, (or “graphic novels” as they are now styled).
I will admit that dead tree books are bulky. I often read two or three a week, (when I die, sell your Amazon stock), and storage is a problem, but I’d rather cope with that than an e-reader.
Is it true that e-readers don’t work if you’re out of cellular range? My grandson, who is a screen addict, tells me that e-books he “buys” are streamed from “the cloud”, not downloaded to his reader.
‘Nother thing. Since it’s so easy to self-publish on the Innertubes, the amount of TRULY godawful fiction that reaches the public square has increased exponentially. How to filter it out, since editors have been sidelined? The advent of “print-on-demand” technology that Amazon is using is even bleeding this junk into the hardcopy book market. Nobody has to judge whether a book is worth the cost of a press run anymore. Heck, nobody even PROOFREADS the stuff!
/rant
I almost exclusively only read books. I had an e-reader that I used for a few but gave it to my daughter because I didn’t like it. I have a few books that I’ve downloaded. I just find too much screen time is not good for my vision.
And you can slam a book shut!
I like books but I really like the ability to zoom in for bigger text and see photos better using my 10” android tablet. I have 3 bookcases filled with dust collecting books plus more books in storage. The magazines I get like Readers Digest and Air & Space I get physical copies but also kindle downloads. I have a few dozen ebooks.
Currently, I'm just recently getting into Louis L'Amour for the first time which I could probably get on my ebooks, but it is cheaper to buy used copies and then trade them in when I'm done with them.
All things being equal, I do love the feel and intimacy of the printed word on paper between two covers. Always have been a real biblophile.
Will probably never read a “real” book again. Using the Kindle app on my iPhone, I can read in bed during the night without waking the wife; read in the car while waiting for someone; or wherever.
During our Bible study, though, it would be handier to have a “real” Bible so you can quickly flip to a certain passage. But that’s about the only advantage I see.
Electronic textbook and other student reading sources are DESTROYING learning.
Electronic reading is not only passive, it’s intrusive due to the screen light. (This is mitigated in Kindle, for example, or browser “read mode”) but kids are reading this online texts only and don’t even know how to change font size or screen zoom.
That said, I was never able to read digital books until I got a Surface Duo — MS’s two-screen, foldable cell phone. The thing was absolutely made for reading on the Kindle app.
Narrator (usually a professional actor), with his/her voice or attitude adds extra dimension to the text, distorting sometimes how it would sound to a book reader.
I love my kindle, it’s better for reading in bed and also for going to the park, pool, etc. I also love my audiobooks. But still like real books too!
My position is that books are more interactive, because you can write on the pages or highlight important concepts.
—
There is that. Was preparing a meal the other day using an old cookbook I have from my Mom. There are notes she’d written in the margins about this or that recipe. Touching the writing is like a connection to the past, although she is long gone.
:hug:
I’ve never read an internet book.. Hard copy all the way ... My passion is History books written from ~ 1880 to 1920 - no b.s....
King’s Bookstore on Lafayette in Detroit gets my business...
Your children can inherit your books. Not sure if that is even possible with online books. It might not be transferrable.
The app GoodReader can do all that and more. The key is use PDF files and not Kindle or Apple readers. I use 7 different highlight colors, and 7 different underline colors. I can use boxes, ovals, freeform lines of various thickness and color with or without fill of various color and opaqueness. I can put text anywhere and use various sizes, fonts, or colors and add callouts with arrows to point to specific. I can create my own table of contents that captures the ideas I want to remember or pages I want to review. My markings look like works of art. With 128GB I can have thousands of books with me at all times. And I can extract pages and send them to others, like you if you’d like a sample.
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