E Readers

[pellaz]

actual paperback books are nice but paper production really trashes the environment, maybe not in your country but in a near by country.

eReaders are like anything computer; they have reset stability issues, finite battery life. Their interface can be odd making it difficult to load transfer maintain delete your library.

companies have been price fixing the cost of eBooks.

[deaner]

Love my Kobo and use it all the time. I borrow e-books from my public library for free (I read the entire Harry Potter series that way). It makes for very easy reading even while standing on the bus or subway, and it beats lugging around 1000 page hardcover novels like "Under the Dome" (which I did in the "old days").

[Bowyn Aerrow]

E readers do not burn as well as paper and leather.



I think they may be the upside to having a lot of books in the palm of your hand, but I am a traditionalist and I view the paper books to be far more enjoyable. The scent, the feel, the heft are such a part of reading for me that using a screen seems like I'm being cheated.

Besides which, I find the notion of moving from a medium that has been known to last for centuries to something that can easily be lost by just draining the batteries to be a bit unsettling.

I have books which are over a century old - I do not need to put them on a charger, They have been read by me and by others - even read by people who have long since died. I know that those books will most likely survive to be read by many others and outlive me.

That e-reader, has no history and perhaps no future as no doubt the electronic book people will figure out a way to make the date go corrupt in short order, and like any other electronic media one will have to buy the same thing over and over again.

[partisan]

Books, Books, Books! Theres nothing i like more than reading an old book, coming upon a dog-eared page, knowing someone else was exactly where you are now.

Also when you read a book people say "oooh hes clever" whereas when your on technology, people say "tsss what a zombie" :p

Also when you finish a book, its so satisfying to turn the final page, feel it in your hands in quiet reflection.

[naitsirc]

While I like the idea of a Kindle, I am not yet accustomed to reading on one. Though I do have to marvel at Project Gutenburg which offers free books on e readers. I have saved myself quite a bit by downloading old classics and read them on a kindle.

[NightSwan]

I love books. My room is full with books. I especially like having complete series, which often come in the one-hugeass-volume variety. But I love owning books so I don't care.
Reading these monsters is a different matter entirely.
I've been spending way too much money on books for a while (with a modest enough salary in a country where most books cost what takes me from 2 to 4 hours to earn), so I thought I'd get myself an e-book reader to stop spending so much. It was pretty expensive, but well worth it. I stopped spending on random novels and now I buy mostly non-fiction, books I really liked/want and stuff I can't download. Like Patricia Highsmith. And I started using amazon...

The rant above was no clear answer, it seems to me.
Reading a real book is the most wonderful thing. But not always the most practical.
E-book readers are light, give you the opportunity to carry an entire library with you (especially in case you finish the book while on a bus ride or something), but it's a different feel. Both offer different experience. I think the most important thing is to enjoy what you're reading, regardless what you're using.
But if you want to read the complete works of, say, Shakespeare in one go, I think you should go with the e-book version. : D

[MisterLove]

[...] E-book readers are light, give you the opportunity to carry an entire library with you (especially in case you finish the book while on a bus ride or something), but it's a different feel. Both offer different experience. I think the most important thing is to enjoy what you're reading, regardless what you're using.
But if you want to read the complete works of, say, Shakespeare in one go, I think you should go with the e-book version. : D

I'm with you, NightSwan!

In the movie After Earth, there is this wonderful dialogue about Melville's Moby Dick and how paper books became rarities. And they're right, they will become rarities - probably sooner than we think.

I use my iPad to read ebooks and I love it. I've already downloaded hundreds of ebooks FOR FREE, to me paper is not even an option.