What are people's thoughts on #ebooks? I love my ereader, and switched to ebooks when I got it. It's great to have easy access to lots of books, to carry around lots, I love the accessibility benefits of them, I love how easy it is to share/backup ebooks. I love I have a backlight and can read in bed without disturbing anyone sleeping in the bed.
@ebel the most important thing about ebooks is wall space. I was seriously short of wall space before I switched
@lupine Downside: You can't walk into someone's house (or they to yours), look at their bookcase and see what kind of person they are. 😞 I still don't know a good solution. Printing book covers to stick to your wall seems.... weird...
@ebel never fear, a solution exists: https://voe.social/media/JZY8N-MwFDsfx-VgyCg
@ebel I love most things about them! One thing that I can't really use them for though is studying or reading something that requires skipping around instead of reading from cover to cover. I need physical bookmarks in a physical block of paper for that.
Another thing that is annoying is dealing with DRM.
Oh and when the ebook costs as much as the print or even more is also not fun. Ebooks are great, but the practices around them often not so much ^^;
@maunzikation Total agree about ebooks being rubbish for reference. I'm learning a language, and tried reading a grammar #book on ereader, erk! Too many tables. I got the paper version, much better.
And yes, #DRM is horrible, I always strip it. Just on principle.
@ebel The single greatest invention of the last ~ten years. Better than the iPhone or Android. I can go on an airplane with an entire library in my pocket, that almost never runs out of battery. Backlight is incredible, latest ereader is hd, so crystal clear typography. Plus it’s a kobo, so I get to choose the typeface.
Oh, but I do use the iPad for technical books, the ereader just isn’t enough for those.
@SlowRain I remember having that problem with The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I couldn't buy it in my regional Amazon account, the amazon.com implied it had it, my kindle was registered to that, but it wouldn't work on the device. It was bizarre.
Eventually a friend in S. America had to use the US Amazon.com to buy it and send it to me.
@SlowRain ah gotcha. Do you speak a different language from majority one where you live? Surely Amazon.com will deliver a book anywhere?
@ebel I'm a Canadian expat living in Taiwan, where they speak Chinese.
As for Amazon, I won't buy anything from them for ethical reasons. I think they're one of the more evil companies out there.
@ebel I prefer the haptic feeling of a physical book any time. Maybe it's because I read non-fiction mostly? Apart from being able to easily switch between pages, having a clear progress and sense of place I can also easily share a printed book. Searching in a book , however, is painful compared to an #ebook - and the whole publishing process is easier with an ebook. Then again, this sometimes shows in quality, too.
@enough I agree about reference books. Paper is often much better, esp if you want to jump around. For regular, linear books (novels etc) ereaders are great IMO
@ebel I resisted for a long time, but I just moved and my new library makes checking out ebooks on my phone so easy that I might switch, at least for library books