So am I like the only person who reads books to experience a story and not experience the reading? I read constantly, and the dead tree experience matters so very, very little to me. I’ll read a print book, listen to audiobooks, read on the Kindle, whatever. I just want the message, not the medium.
And frankly, I have trouble going back to print, especially for nonfiction. You can’t search a print book.
I hear you Mika! I resisted getting a Kindle for a long time - and then my boyfriend bought me one for my birthday. I LOVE it so much. Especially when I’m traveling. I used to pack 4-5 books every time we went away for the summer, and it still wasn’t enough. Now I can take my entire collection with me wherever I go.
Of course, I still enjoy some print books, but those are usually hardcovers with pictures. And I still prefer print books when I’m teaching or reading poetry. I like scribbling on paper.
I have a Nook and love it. In fact, I’m reading more because of it. I’ve downloaded a lot of public domain books from Project Gutenberg that I have wanted to read but never made the effort to buy or check out. The Nook makes it so easy that I can’t not read them now.
I understand the nostalgia people have for paper books, the covers, the smell, the look of a full bookcase, I like those things too. But as Bosstone said the message is what’s really important and for that I find the Kindle to be better than a paper book. I can hold it and turn pages with one hand or set it down without the pages trying to close up. I can easily switch between books if I’m not in the mood for the one I’m working on, or buy the sequel to the story I just finished at midnight as I’m lying in bed, it’s great.
I’ve been reading a lot more since I bought my Kindle than I did before, and I think that’s about the best argument I can make for it.
The pages turn incredibly fast on my Kindle, so I’m surprised to hear that someone thinks they turn slow. They definitely turn faster when I’m laying upside down in my bed reading…it only takes a thumb or a finger, rather than rearranging my whole body to flip to the next side, especially with a massive book.
Also, as zombywoof says, it was one incident, and I keep copies of all my Kindle books on my PC. Actually, I download them to my PC first, and keep them in sorted files. Why in the world would I ever not make a backup, that’s money right there.
I mean, I picked up my Kindle yesterday and I have almost 200 books in it. And that’s just from my slow buying rate; if I was buying more I’d have more. 200 books! In this teeny tiny little thing.
Also there are a ton of free books. I’m currently reading Oliver Twist…I’m pleasantly surprised at how snarky and witty it is - free. I also regularly download other free books.
Bosstone, I’m mostly with you, except I mostly can’t listen to audiobooks. I love them, they are wonderful, the voices are great…but they are TOO SLOW. I read way faster than that.
I gave away a lot of my books, too. Let other people have the joy. Actually, as soon as I get a book on my Kindle, I make a mental note to donate it. Why do I need to keep space for both? I WILL have the library I always dreamed of. But instead of climbing ladders and trying to find a specific book, I’ll always have it at my fingertips.
As to the instant gratification, let me tell you, that is BRILLIANT when you are having a bad insomnia night.
I love my Kindle, but I’m still reading a lot of paper books, too. I still have room on my shelves and for $15 I’d rather have a shiny new hardback. When I finish an ebook I experience a small regret that I don’t have a physical thing to shelve, because I like to look at my collection of books. So far I don’t get the same thrill from scrolling through the list of titles on the Kindle.
The Kindle is easier to read in certain situations, but flipping back to find something is a real pain that the search feature doesn’t quite compensate for. Maneuvering to read footnotes and endnotes is annoying, too, but that will probably be fixed when I get a touch Kindle and I don’t have to cursor around. I do love the highlight feature.
Yes - my SO has been asking me for about two years if I wanted a Kindle Fire, and after this epiphany, I have decided I’ll get one. The Kindle Fire 2 comes out next month, I think, and my birthday is in November, so that should give it plenty of time to hear complaints, etc.
Don’t be, I did very nearly the same thing when Nashiitashii convinced me to get E-Readers. I’m not much of a tech guy but I ADORE my kindle. The only paper books we keep are her work reference and my rather large collection of art reference books (which live in my studio anyway). Getting rid of the hundreds of paperback fiction was a breath of fresh air and cleared up space for more important things. I donated them all to a local used bookstore and didn’t look back. I read more than ever now, and there are loads of inexpensive titles available for under 3.00. Additionally, the ability to have all of my fiction available at a moment’s notice is simply fabulous. I take one tiny device with me instead of bulky paperback, and it has every book I’ve ever purchased on it.
That’s not irrationally clean, it’s a clean car.
I prefer the Kindle too… and I don’t feel like a traitor to books, I feel like a traitor to my favorite bookseller and editor! :smack: sorry, Alejo
The Kindle Fire takes care of both of these - the covers show up (yay! I like seeing them too), and footnotes/endnotes are a click away. Both of those bothered me with pre-Fire Kindles.
I’m not interested in a Fire, though, because I don’t want to read on a backlit screen. I like the E ink display.
I have always been outspoken against the Kindles and I have to admit, I do own one now but my opinion hasnt’ changed. I purchased it because it traveled easy but never use it otherwise. It totally ruins the book experience for me. The process of turning pages, the smell of the book, the satisfaction of closing the cover when complete. I will be sorely disappointed if ebooks become our only option in the future. Even if it makes my shelves upon shelves of hardcover books valuable in fifty years.
I’ve thought about getting a Kindle, but one of my concerns is related to this. E-readers aren’t that old. If I buy a paperback, I can be reasonable sure I can read it in 10 years. I have many paperbacks that are over 10 years old and some of the decades old ones might show their age, but are perfectly readable. If I buy The Hunger Games as an e-book today, will I be able to read it in 10 years on whatever version of the Kindle is out then? Or will it be like with videos when people bought a ton of movies on VHS, then replaced them with DVD, and then with Blu-Ray. You can keep watching movies on VHS today if you want, but it’s a lot more difficult finding a working VCR and having it work with your current TV.
I’m not a Luddite, and I have genuinely thought about getting a Kindle. But I’m just concerned about sinking a lot of money into the device and books for it, and then having to pay for all the books again when my Kindle Fire stops working and I have to buy the new Kindle Phoenix or whatever it’s called in 10 years. Maybe the Kindle Phoenix will be able to show ebooks from 2012, but they just will be so slow and won’t work as well as the super ebooks made in 2022 that cost more.
Does anyone know more about the ebook formats that can assuage my fears? How likely is it that they will stand the test of time?
My library is getting smaller, I am scanning and OCRing and editing all of our multiple thousands of books into ebook form and giving away/selling/throwing away [depending on the condition of the book and if anybody wants it and so forth] the hard copy books. I am aiming to get down to a round 1000 tree format books and everything else ebook. I just finished scanning in the box of almost all the clive cussler books, all the janet evanovich books, all the Darren Shan vampire books [the god-sprogs like them] and 21 of the Cat Who books and just need to go through them for correcting the OCR, then formatting them into ebook format. [we use banker boxes for storage, and one can fit around 100-150 paperbacks per box so it is a ‘scanning measure’ of 1 BB = 150 books, breaks the work down into managable size]
I use calibre as my control program on the desktop and laptop, it is pretty useful in converting and sorting ebooks. I read on my droid phone in adliko.
You can source free ebooks online, there are a couple threads on the dope about where to find free ebooks =)
I don’t know, but if you’re really worried about it and are willing to strip the DRM you can maintain your own copy of your library and create non-proprietary format (like .txt) backup files…software like Calibre makes it pretty easy.
How long does that take?
The books are sitting on your computer (if you sync it with something like Calibre). They are files, in digital format. The industry so far has been doing really well keeping up old formats, either pictures, videos or documents/text. I don’t think that’s a concern.
You can still read/import/edit documents created in WordPerfect in 1980 in today’s Microsoft Word (or other document editors).
Don’t worry, you’re in good company. I have a Nook 1stGen which goes just about everywhere with me. A friend of mine (who is a former librarian) told me that e-readers were going to cause the death of the actual book. I told her the reason I liked it was because I love the awesome power of being able to carry over a thousand books around in my purse. Can’t do THAT with real books. 
Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for the explanation. I’m probably not going to go get a Kindle immediately, but that does calm one of my worries about it.
Can you explain this? Are you actually reading scanned pages? Like PDFs?
StG