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Paper Books vs. Electronic


King.In.Yellow

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Of course, this is meant as a discussion, but I'll go right ahead and get it off my chest:

Paper books annoy me. I don't like the feel of paper under my fingers. It feels dusty and rough. Furthermore, I always lose my page and I can't really eat without smudging the book with my fingertips.

Now, an electronic format book (I usually read on my laptop) is a thing of beauty. If I have to stop reading and do something for a while, why I just minimize the window and do whatever I'm supposed to do. Also, I've never been injured in any manner by my laptop. Also, if at any point I feel bullshat by the book in question, why my good friend Google is on call 24/7.

Now weigh in.

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I enjoy reading Kindle books on my iPad, but I am ever-mindful of rights issues. If Amazon decides that book is gone I lose it and that's that. So if I buy a Kindle book I really like, I make sure to get a hard copy I can keep forever.

Despite what I said in the first sentence, I don't think it's hideously unfair that I don't own a Kindle book in the same way I own a paperback. Similarly, when I pay to go to a movie theatre I don't expect the film to be mine forever and ever. If I want my own copy I'll buy the DVD.

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I've been meaning to buy an e-reader, before the manufacturers are put out of business by tablets, so I can read on public transports. The size argument is a good one. My paper book to be read pile won't diminish, however.

Reading on a laptop is kind of taking the worst of both world, this being said. Losing your page: bookmarks, how do they work? Looking on internet: if you have access to a laptop, you put the book next to it. Getting injured by a book: what? Smudging a book: dirtying keyboards or screens is a not an option either.

I don't think it's hideously unfair that I don't own a Kindle book in the same way I own a paperback. Similarly, when I pay to go to a movie theatre I don't expect the film to be mine forever and ever. If I want my own copy I'll buy the DVD.
If the margin made from buying a ticket is the same or higher as the one made from selling a DVD, then it's unfair and borderline fraud.

Not that there is any option of "buying the DVD" here: the only option you have is to read your book on another support, a non-digital one.

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The older I get, the more I am coming to accept the notion that one must be developmentally mature (which would be mid-20s at the earliest) before one can express a cogent opinion on matters of such import as how one chooses to read ;)

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i read the whole aSoIaF on paper/pc/iphone last year. i borrowed the books from a friend of mine and when i was at work i read it on my pc in pdf. before everyone flames me for reading an illegal pdf - i had no conscience issues about it because i already had the books, it was just more convenient to read it in pdf when i was at work. in the afternoons i had 2-3 hours when my son was asleep. he would wake up often so i had to be with him and i had no other option but to read the pdf on my iphone. it was a pain in the ass but i had to use every opportunity to read, the curiosity was killing me.

bottom line, paper gives me a more "genuine" feel but pc has some major advantages - no lighting issues, free hands, it's more comfortable. reading on iphone is shitty for obvious reasons and i haven't tried a reader/tablet but i see nothing bad about it.

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I've always been a strong supporter of traditional books. Reading a book has always meant much more than literally reading for me. It was also the smell of paper, the feel of the book in my hands, the cover, maps and illustractions and so on. I tried to read something on my laptop few times and it was simply awful, very unpleasant experience. But few weeks ago, due to practical reasons (lack of book shelves mostly) I broke and ordered my first e-book reader, Kindle Paperwhite (still waiting for the package to arrive). I am actually really curious as to how I am going to react.

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I have a whole wall of bookshelves in my bedroom, and a few more in the kids room, but my wife for some reason (which I fail to understand) said 'no' to installing more bookshelves in our hall. ;)

it's simple - if you wanted no more bookshelves she would want more bookshelves :)

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I read paper books, I read on my laptop and I read on my Kindle and all of those are awesome, as long as the books are great :) But there is something about that smell of the book, that technology still hasn't cought up with.

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I've always prefered reading on a computer.

Font adjustment et al.

People who read pdf-like formats in a computer are mad though. There should be no pages in a digital reading format!

Pdf is the most useless and annoying format in the history of computing.

It's like you're reading a scroll, but the wankers want to make it look like a book so they paginate the scroll and put numbers on the top.

Granted, incremental movement is a no-no ('page turn' is good), but pdf even fails at that.

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SCO,

Not when you are emailing copies of documents that you want to be sure the other person cannot alter. In other words PDFs are nice in settlement negotiations. I email a word format document it would be really easier for the other side to change a few words necessitating a super detailed reread of the document I just sent to them.

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SCO,

Not when you are emailing copies of documents that you want to be sure the other person cannot alter. In other words PDFs are nice in settlement negotiations. I email a word format document it would be really easier for the other side to change a few words necessitating a super detailed reread of the document I just sent to them.

Sure... pdf is a printing format, where what you see is what gets printed. For fiction e-books, that quality is nigh-useless, even detrimental, except for pagination 'experiments', for instance, double rows, that can be done in html too, without restricting the format text flow anyway.

I prefer to strip 'variety' anyway, when i read books. I prefer reading on ebook program because it always has the same font size, the same empty spaces, etc.

It's problematic for things like footers, but that can be worked around with metadata in any ebook format.

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