Ebooks vs. Real Books

vendygirl

Okay I have to know. What are your thoughts on e-readers (Kindle, Nook etc) versus real books.

I was skeptical at first but then my husband bought me the baby kindle just before our wedding so I could have it on our honeymoon for our *cough cough* recover time.

I have to say the Kindle is awesome. Light, easy to work and easy to read, even in the bright sunlight (something which is hard to do with the ipad). Now don't get me wrong. Nothing can replace the physical book. I love having one in hand and nothing beats old book smell!

My husband actually will check out a book on his kindle and if he REALLY likes the new author he will go out and buy the actual book, if it is available.

So what are your thoughts? Do you think e-readers will completely replace books? Or will it be like the CD/Records and they will survive to a point.

TheBrolympus

Real books will survive but the ebook market is growing stronger and stronger. Nook and Kindle have apps for the computer, phones, and tablets so you can read you books on anything. The only problem I have with e-readers is using them for reference materials. There is nothing faster than flipping through a book scanning for the information you need.

hdsqrl

My husband got me a Nook, and sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. I think e-readers are great for travel and for reading novels for fun. If you have a book you'll want to use for reference, though, a real book is the way to go, just because you can flip through it so much faster. Plus, of course, if the book is a classic, the real one looks great in the home library.

tansygreen

I was given a Kindle for mother's day last year (like you, I was sceptical) but it was just so easy, eg. standing up on the subway and reading one handed, I took to it immediately.
I really don't think they are any good for magazines, newspapers, cookbooks and so on because I like to see the actual layout with the pictures and headlines and whatever in the way they were originally designed. Visually it just makes more sense to me.

ImNotThatBob

There will always be collectors of Real Books. eBooks will become more popular with the advent and availability of more devices to deliver them on. However, like you said... "Nothing beats the feel, or smell of a Real Book."

deadstarsunburn

I think e-readers are awesome.
However being a college student I've found just buying the book is smarter. For example one of my summer class textbooks would cost $163 brand new hardcover copy, and e-reader $123, I just bought a used one for $40 and can sell it back for nearly what I bought if for.

So for me I don't find it useful lol.
For leisure reading I think they're wonderful and loads cheaper!

rml_16

I've tried reading on my phone and I despise it. I'm a writer and I love being surrounded by real books, seeing their covers, holding them, having the spines sticking out on my shelves ...

Reading, to me, is about more than just the act of looking at words and processing them. I will never own an e-reader. I'm scared to death that it will eventually be the only choice, though.

angieroo2

I like my Kindle a lot more over regular books for two reasons: I can switch between different books depending on what I feel like reading; and my purse isn't weighed down when I carry a book on my commute.

angieleighbyrd

I love my kindle

samf36

I have a Kindle fire and my one son has a nook and my other 2 kids have smart phones and read off our accounts. I love that there are many free books out there and we can get from our library . I love to read and would sign out many books a month from the library but seldom bought any , not in my frugal nature.

lloydrt

they will become like typewriters............unfortunately,a thing of the past

like fountain pens, abacus's, 8 tracks, CDs, and reel to reel tape recorders

just a new type of information based products.............sigh

Mustlovepugs11

I have been using a kindle for a few months now. I really enjoy it and have been reading a lot more, but I am finding now that I miss having the actual book.

js25698

When ebook readers first started appearing, I thought it was a stupid idea. I wanted the feel of a real book. WELL, now I have my Kindle Fire and I get mad when a book is not available in ebook format. First, I like the ability to change the font since most paperback print is so small. Second, I like how it syncs last page read between my Kindle, my phone (for sitting on the train), and my computer at work which also has the free software installed on it. I love my Kindle.

mhankosk

I just personally like the feel of a real book in my hands. Its a weird thing, I know. But thats just me. I am going on a 2 week trip in July and was actually considering getting a Kindle just so I don't have to pack a book (or books)... I'm just not sure how much I'll use it once I get back... Who knows.

poodlelaise

I love ebooks. I will never buy another fiction book that isn't an ebook. It is so easy to carry all the books you want for an entire vacation. It is so nice not to have hundreds (or thousands) of books all over the house. Also, with arthritis in my hands, it is so much easier to hold and turn the pages in an ebook. I will still keep my "real" reference books and cook books though.

galegetsthin

I hope they dont replace them completely. While I LOVE my Kindle, and pretty much only buy books on it, there is something about a book that it cannot replace. I still buy books for reference material, and if I *REALLY* love a book, I will buy a hard copy. But recipe books, educational material and old books are something that you need to feel, to be able to search for that favorite cherry cobbler recipe or the sentence that you highlighted.
Another thing is the smell. I love the way that books smell. Especially old books. It is a very distinct smell that has strong connections to my childhood and I would be devastated if that were gone. I have a bookshelf and always will. I do love my kindle, but some things are never as good as the original.

StrongGwen

I too was skeptical but have been converted. I do need the cover with my Kindle to keep me from hitting the turn-page buttons while I read, because I read in bed in all sorts of twisted and reclining postures. I say "my" Kindle but my DH has taken it over--he has neurological problems and it's SO much easier to hold for a long time, and especially for a big fat heavy book--I used to sprin my thumb reading the "Outlander" series (900+ pages per book)! and for travel it's perfect because it's so small and has so many books on it.

I expect to see textbooks on Kindles & other devices and kids no longer hauling around those huge backpacks.

Oh, one other issue is I fall asleep reading and it slides out of my hands and hits the floor sometimes, but that's true with a "real" book too, only a real book makes more noise hitting the carpet!

Nook with the glow-light for reading in the dark is getting good reviews.

ALittleLikeHell

I think E-books are probably here for the long haul. IMHO, interesting to note though is how few people still really READ at all - be it e-books or old school :noway: Its a bit scary actually..

Personally I like 'real' books better, I should have a separate room just for my books

rml_16

I love ebooks. I will never buy another fiction book that isn't an ebook. It is so easy to carry all the books you want for an entire vacation. It is so nice not to have hundreds (or thousands) of books all over the house. Also, with arthritis in my hands, it is so much easier to hold and turn the pages in an ebook. I will still keep my "real" reference books and cook books though.

I like having hundreds of books in my house. I can't imagine a home without them.

jenkinsjerry

The "Kindle" app is tremendous. Buy once and read on many different devices... So if I'm on a plane or at lunch somewhere and all have is my phone, I can open up the same book I was reading the night before at home on our family Ipad. Plus it saves your last read page, irrespective of what device you're using. This virtual book concept is pretty darned cool.

Qarol

I'm scared to death that it will eventually be the only choice, though.

:sad:
Please don't make me read books on an e-reader! The phrase "page turner" is special to me...

Kerchinga

I LOVE my Kindle and had a Sony E-Reador prior to that. I have always been an avid reader and continued to read at least 1 book per week all my life.
The problem was I ran out of room to store them all! Now with my ebooks i can have as many as I like..got to say I still buy the occasional hardback of authors I particularly love to keep on my shelves

BrettPGH

Real books. I've never had to plug in a book.

RoboLikes

I like the feel, the weight, the smell of an actual paperback. I love cracking the spine of a new book when I'm turning page after page and the look of a well worn book on my shelf cannot be replaced.

wolverine66

I'm scared to death that it will eventually be the only choice, though.

:sad:
Please don't make me read books on an e-reader! The phrase "page turner" is special to me...

Just like people will still say "I sound like a broken record player," or will still "tape a show" (on DVR), or "hang up" a phone - I think "page turner" is a safe phrase.

morganhccstudent724

I like feeling a book in my hand. Not a tablet....

therealangd

I actually started reading more once I got my ereader.

Silverkittycat

"It's the mental furniture that matters".
Just because I love that line.

The Way We Read Now
By DWIGHT GARNER

THE case against electronic books has been made, and elegantly, by many people, including Nicholson Baker in The New Yorker a few years ago. Mr. Baker called Amazon’s Kindle, in a memorable put-down, “the Bowflex of bookishness: something expensive that, when you commit to it, forces you to do more of whatever it is you think you should be doing more of.”

The best case I’ve seen for electronic books, however, arrived just last month, on the Web site of The New York Review of Books. The novelist Tim Parks proposed that e-books offered “a more austere, direct engagement” with words. What’s more, no dictator can burn one. His persuasive bottom line: “This is a medium for grown-ups.”

I’ve been trying to become more of a grown-up, in terms of my commitment to reading across what media geeks call “platforms” (a word that’s much sexier when applied to heels), from smartphones to e-readers to tablets to laptops.

It’s a battle I may lose. I still prefer to consume sentences the old-fashioned and nongreen way, on the pulped carcasses of trees that have had their throats slit. I can imagine my tweener kids, in a few years, beginning to picket me for my murderous habits: “No (tree) blood for (narrative) oil.”

It’s time to start thinking, however, about the best literary uses for these devices. Are some reading materials better suited to one platform than another? Does Philip Larkin feel at home on an iPad, and Lorrie Moore on a Kindle? Can I make a Kay Ryan poem my ringtone? Will any gizmo make “The Fountainhead” palatable?

Books used to pile up by my bedside; sometimes it now seems that gadgets do, the standby power of their LED lights staring at me like unfed dogs. Let’s talk about these machines, and their literary uses, in order of size, from small to large.


The Smartphone

The smartphone has clearly been recent technology’s greatest gift to literacy. Carrying one obliterates one’s greatest fear: of being trapped somewhere — a train, the D.M.V., a toilet — with nothing whatsoever to read.

Most of what I devour on my phone is journalism: out-of-town newspapers and links gleaned from Twitter and Facebook. Ben Franklin would have liked this palm-size medium. He’s the founding father who said, “Read much, but not too many books.”

Franklin’s autobiography happens to be an ideal thing to have on your phone. It’s in the public domain, and thus free for the Kindle app. Here’s another unlikely choice: John Cheever’s “Journals,” the most underrated nonfiction book of the 20th century. Cheever’s entries are bite-size yet profound. They are aching when not outright grim; they’ll place the soul-killing events in your own life in context, and may even cheer you up.

I frequently seem to be scanning my iPhone in restaurants, while waiting to order or eating alone at the counter. I like to read about food before a meal; it sharpens the appetite and can lead to drooling. Two favorites are memoirs: “The Raw and the Cooked,” by Jim Harrison, my true north of food writers, and “Blood, Bones & Butter,” by Gabrielle Hamilton. Scrolling through Ms. Hamilton’s memoir, you’ll find this shrewd bit of advice: “Be careful what you get good at doin’ ’cause you’ll be doin’ it the rest of your life.”

Keep an audio book or two on your iPhone. Periodically I take the largest of my family’s dogs on long walks, and I stick my iPhone in my shirt pocket, its tiny speaker facing up. I’ve listened to Saul Bellow’s “Herzog” this way. The shirt pocket method is better than using ear buds, which block out the natural world. My wife tucks her phone into her bra, on long walks, and listens to ****ens novels. I find this unbearably sexy.


E-Readers

More fetching than a girl with a dragon tattoo has always been a girl with a Penguin Classic. With e-books, you have no idea what anyone is reading. This is an incalculable loss, not just to fleeting crushes but to civilization.

That said, e-readers like Amazon’s Kindle strike me as the most intimate, and thus sexiest, of these devices. They’re the Teddy Pendergrass of platforms. On most, the text isn’t backlit, and thus trying too hard, always a turnoff. You are less inclined to cheat on one — that is, to read e-mail or surf the Web. In reading, like love, fidelity matters.

Because e-books don’t have covers, teenagers may find it easier to consume the books some parents used to confiscate — “Forever,” by Judy Blume, “Flowers in the Attic,” by V. C. Andrews. Their parents will think they are playing Angry Birds.

I’m an admirer of Jonathan Franzen, the gifted novelist who has been outspoken about his dislike of electronic books. But if you aren’t a fan of Mr. Franzen’s, I would guess that reading his novels on a Kindle, a device he loathes, might be considered a literary form of hate sex.

E-readers, excellent for singles — short, novella-length books — are also the platform to turn to when going long, when it’s time to finally pick up Roberto Bolaño’s “2666” or Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” or William Gaddis’s “The Recognitions.” (Shop local, when you can. Ask your local independent bookseller about buying e-books through them.)


The iPad

The iPad, for me, is thus far the place to toss the kind of big nonfiction books I’m probably going to attentively skim rather than read — Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, for example, or “Reading for My Life: Writings, 1958-2008,” by the superb cultural critic John Leonard.

I like, too, that some of these nonfiction books offer electronic footnotes that take you straight to a source. Those sources are sometimes much better than the book you are holding. There are often more unusual things to click. The iPad app for Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” for example, is a sensorium of maps and timelines and other things, in addition to the text. “Whither goes thou, America,” he writes, here as in the paper version, “in thy shiny car in the night?”

I’m not sold on these kinds of add-ons, lovely as they are. If I want TV, I have one. But I can imagine a young person being wooed. Art books, too — many of them are available free — are a treat on the iPad. The clarity is breathtaking, like a snort of some visual drug.

I’ve tried poetry on each of these platforms: Larkin, ****inson, Philip Levine, Amy Clampitt. It’s not happening, at least not for me. There’s not enough white space, nor silence. The poems seem shrunken and trapped, like lobsters half-dead in a supermarket glass pen, their claws rubber-banded. Poems should be printed on paper, or carved onto the dried husks of coconuts, so one can hoard them.

The one bit of verse that charmed me, when read on the iPad, was Clive James’s brilliant and witty “The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered.” This poem forces you to wonder: What will remainders look like in our digital future? Where’s the 99-cents bin going to be?

You can’t read an e-book in the tub. You can’t fling one across the room, aiming, as Mark Twain liked to do, at a cat. And e-books will not furnish a room.


Writing in The Times in 1991, Anna Quindlen declared, “I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

I am so down with that. But it’s the mental furniture that matters.

DieVixen

I dont know what I would do without my kindle. I could not care less about the feel or smell of a real book. Im in it for the story,and the fact that I can get the books cheaper on my kindle. I also think an overflowing bookshelf does not "decorate" a house. I take my kindle in the bath all the time(freezer bags work wonders) have you ever dropped a real book in the tub,if you werent done reading it you will be after that.

rml_16

Silver -- While no dictator can burn an e-reader, a dictator CAN reach into it with his own technology and erase it. And he can do that to every single e-reader that has that book on it in a matter of seconds.

Which is one more reason those things scare me.

TheRoadDog

My wife has a Kindle. Each one of my daughters has a Kindle. My co-workers all love their e-books. Everyone keeps trying to get me to buy one. Finally just had to say, "I am NEVER going to own a Kindle or any other e-book! Leave me alone."

I like a paperback. Always have one on me. I trade at the local used book store. They give 25% face value on your trade ins, and charge 50% on face value (in credit) . Plus 50 cents per book.

Costs me 50 cents a book. I have never run out of credit in 20 years. Just keep trading in my books and the books everyone else has no use for. I love going down to the book store and browsing, plus I am supporting a local business. I will be sad when ebooks finally put them out of business.

Plus....the price for an ebook is just as exorbitant as a new hardback novel. It's ridiculous. No wonder our kids nowadays don't read.