I’m quite a book lover, and still like the touch, haptics, smell of real books. But sometimes it’s just more practical (or unavoidable) reading books in PDF or EPub format. On vacation or on the road it’s just practical not having to tote around many books, and you can have thousands of books at your fingertips. Plus save some trees.
Personally, I prefer hardware readers (like Tolino, Kobo, etc.) because of the E-Ink display and long battery lifetime, and the EPub format (no sizing problems, not vendor-locked, wide support). But, out of curiosity, I’d like to know how you feel about that.
I made this into three polls (format, device, app), so please vote on all three—thanks!
Indeed, same here! I also still love book shops, spelunking around, and meeting people there. And nothing beats reading a good book in a chair near the fireplace, and a mug of tea (or a glass of wine).
E-Readers are just sometimes so much more practical. On my Tolino, I currently carry around ~1800 books. A wild mixture of fiction, non-fiction, programming manuals, and some of my own.
Getting older and the eyesight not being what is was, I greatly enjoy being able to adjust the text size to what I want.
Real books also don’t need a power supply. They also survive for astonishingly long times.
I still have recipe books from 1936, my original Kernighan & Ritchie, and so forth. My kids (now grown-ups) also value real books, my daughter even has her own library room, like me.
I don’t read many books, or at least story based books with the exception of all the Sherlock Holmes stories in physical book format.
Most of what I read in physical books are all learning so I have art books, wood working, and many others. I also have some PDFs that don’t exist as a physical book, or they are very old books I got from the archive website that are rare, difficult, or expensive to find as a physical book.
The rest of my reading while technically not a book is also various good websites or perhaps video tutorials. Otherwise I prefer physical books, I prefer the feel and smell of them and how they carry over the ambient light or atmosphere with them. I also like to take my eyes away from screens or electronic devices once in a while (I know the readers don’t have an LED emitting screen). When on vacation or outside I don’t tend to read books so I never owned a hardware specific reader.
However, our local council’s library uses a couple apps that with our library card, let us borrow digital books / audiobooks. I use that a lot as it’s not dodgy and saves a bit of money (it’s free).
It might be worth seeing if your local libraries have a similar thing.
In Germany and many neighbouring countries there is a system called “Onleihe”, which also works well, and is integrated in some e-readers like Tolino, Kobo, etc. You have to be member of your local library (~15 €/year around here), then it’s free to use Onleihe. You can borrow online, which was nice in Corona quarantine times.
Only problem for me: They typically lend out books in the local language, and I almost only read English-language books.
In general, I prefer to own books, be it physical or electronic. I also tend to buy the DRM-free versions, if available. Makes it easier managing my collection in Calibre, and re-upload to a new device if one fails. Or reading on the desktop, once in a while.
Looking at the first numbers coming up, there’s a lot of real book lovers around here. Maybe I should have asked for “What electronic means do you use”? I still like to see so many of you valuing real books.
Very interesting so far. Keep on voting, everyone!
Apparently the percentages shown in the polls here are based on the number of voters, not votes, which can be a bit misleading if more than one answer is allowed.
Actual books to me are “the real deal.” Novels, science fiction, biographies, theoretical physics, etc, need to be read in actual book format, IMHO. Maybe that’s just my age… I still have CDs and LP records that I listen to.
voted books #1…but so many are available digitally that I have succumbed on occasion…so for “favorite software” I voted “Other”: books in pdf form I read in simple Evince pdf reader, nothing fancy.
I have shelves absolutely stuffed with books, many, if not most, decades old. They’re old friends, and they’ll stay with me until my final days. But for day to day reading, I dropped my Kindle due to not wanting to support Amazon in any way, exported my library (before they locked that down too!) and got a Kobo Clara.
This reader is FANTASTIC, and I can just drop my epub files onto it and not have to even think about DRM. Absolutely love the flexibility of having several hundred books in such a convenient package. Paper books will always have their place for me, some are editions that will never go to digital, and are limited in their ability to be republished, but for everything else, Kobo wins.
I love an e-ink reader. Especially as my eyes need more light.
It is a lot easier for me to read comfortably on an e-reader than a physical book.
I am currently using a Pocketbook Era which I like a lot. The built reader application is fine but I use koreader which is really well integrated with that device.
I have a Tolino Vision 5, which has excellent hardware, great battery life, and just the right size for me (7″ E-Ink). Built-in software isn’t that great, I had to create my own dictionary and hyphenation. KOReader also works nicely on this, but it all requires lots of hacking, so I postponed that since 2 years or so.
Pity that excellent hardware is often paired with underpar software.
Yeah, that is why I chose the Pocketbook. It supports installing and integrating apps without any hacking but it is still a dedicated e-reader.(As opposed to an Android device with an e-ink screen)
The Era is also 7" and I find that to be a good size.
They also survive for astonishingly long times.
I still like to see so many of you valuing real books.
