30-day Challenge! - Day 19: Ebook or Treebook, what's your preference?

[Luke]

Treebooks always. I have too many tedious memories of extracting information from electronic PDF textbooks for college courses to ever have an enjoyable experience using such means for my casual reading.

[Annette]

I read both treebooks and ebooks- right now mostly ebooks because they are more easily read while my husband is still sleeping. A few years back I got my then 95 (ish - She’s now 103) year old grandmother a kindle because she couldn’t find a book she wanted to read in large print. The kindle font is adjustable so that’s an advantage. It was also a great way for the family to give her books.

[Sara, Old School Classics]

I read about half and half, but I confess that I still love the feel and smell of the real thing, and if I had a lot of money I would probably just buy all my books in hardback.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

I really do not have a preference. I use both. After reading I must make an effort to remember which format a book was. My new addition in the last ten years has been adding in audio books to the mix. I always "read" audio books with a print version along side. I do not remember the format of the book anymore than I do the place I was sitting. While reading "Toomai of the Elephants" yes I was physically sitting in Applebys eating a prime rib sandwich which my husband was working there. I only remember this because it was recent. Yet I was really in India in the mountains on the back of the great elephant. Oh yeah, I was reading on my phone so that was ebook.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Matt wrote: "Ditto to what most folks are saying. Physical books (probably lean toward paperback) still my favorite, but moving forward for me, I’ll be buying and using mainly e-books and audiobooks, and drasti..."

I understand your concern about leaving a pile of books behind. I am already asking my children if they want certain things and passing them down. Things that are a hard no are being cleared out. I cleaned out the houses after both my grandmother's and my mother's deaths. Our attic is completely empty because I do not want my children to have the experience I had.

[Joseph]

Sara wrote: "I confess that I still love the feel and smell of the real thing,..."

Indeed!

[Laurie]

My preference is definitely tree books, but preferences don't win out over convenience. I read more ebooks than physical books because I own far more of them. It takes no space to store ebooks and I have moved too often to own lots of physical books. Most of the physical books I own are classics I think I will want to keep forever.

[CindySR]

Tree.

[Terry]

You cannot take an ebook into the bathtub. Case closed!

[Robin P]

I prefer treebooks EXCEPT

Traveling - I went to Europe with a no-frills nook reader, not even lighted, battery lasts 30 days so no charging issues, and no running out of books

Classics - I am in a classics book group on GR and I owned many of the books by Dickens, Trollope, etc. but the print is so darn small and sometimes the books are bulky. I got an app years ago on my iPad called Megareader, not sure it is still available. It cost a few dollars but gives access to (mostly) well-formatted books from Gutenberg and other sources. Sometimes they even have the illustrations. And as a former French major, it is a miracle that I can now read all the classics in French with no shopping, shipping, or high costs.

Shutdowns - My local library was totally closed for over 2 months last year, then open only for pickup. I was able to use the ebook service from the library, and even made a donation to a drive to greatly increase their stock of ebooks and audiobooks. But I also realized how easy it is to buy ebooks on line. I get an email daily from Book Bub with specials.

The biggest problem with ebooks is that I forget I own them because I don't see them lying around or on shelves. I finally entered them into GR, which has stopped me from rebuying a book a few times!

I have had nook & Kindle but now read everything through their apps on my iPad.

[LiLi]

Each format has its uses. I confess I never would have bought a Kindle for myself. It was my husband's idea. But thanks to Libby, I use it a lot! It doesn't hurt my eyes like a computer screen, and I can read it at night in bed or take what would otherwise be a heavy book along in my tote bag.

Is anyone else here an interleaver, switching formats of the same book based on what is convenient at the moment?

[LiLi]

@Robin P, are the French books you're reading then all free classic literature from Gutenberg? I'm still trying to sort my foreign language reading. Could you recommend any for someone wanting to practice but who didn't major in French, maybe around the YA level?

My go-to for foreign-language books has typically been YA at the thrift store (which I mark up to heck with a pencil), but it would be nice to be able to read some books in ebook format, too.

[LiLi]

@Robin P, and yes, those Trollope books are huge! I have all the Pallisers as treebooks, but I'm ebooking the rest. I bought the "director's cut" version of _The Duke's Children_, and it was like carrying around an anvil.

[Jen]

EReaders can give me migraines if I read on them for too long. Also, you don’t buy the book when it’s an eBook, you buy the rights to read it and if you don’t download it onto something not connected to the internet, it can be changed or even removed from your device. I joke that if you want to take a tree-book from me, you have to come into my home, deal with me, find the book, deal with me again and then leave. That being said, eBooks are more convenient, so there are positives and negatives for both. I will read anything, I’m not biased.

[Robin P]

LiLi wrote: "@Robin P, are the French books you're reading then all free classic literature from Gutenberg? I'm still trying to sort my foreign language reading. Could you recommend any for someone wanting to p..."

Yes, they are all from Gutenberg. I did pay a few dollars on Apple Books to buy the complete works of Balzac or Zola, I forget which. It is thousands of pages. I wonder how long it would take to download - less than 2 minutes! Of course, you can sit at your computer to read Gutenberg books, but most people don't want to do that.

As far as easier French books, I'll think about that. The ones coming to mind are more modern, like Gigi or Le Petit Prince.

[Tony]

Tree-books, for sure!! I need to hold that story in my hands, flip the pages, sense my progress by noticing the left side growing while the right side diminishes. E-books are hard on the eyes after a while, and just loses that sense of 'enjoying a good book'. To me it's just 'playing on the tablet' with out the sound effects...lol. I've just always been a BOOK person.

[Nente]

I'm reading almost exclusively ebooks.
I do like a paper book, but the logistics are increasingly difficult. I'm moving a lot - as I type this I realize that I never since childhood lived in one place for longer than 3 years. Lugging the books around with us every time is hard... As of now, we've got one up-to-the-ceiling bookcase a meter wide, and half of that are children's books because they really shouldn't be on an e-reader. Even then, the free city children's libraries around have so many good books in good editions that perhaps we should make more use of them and buy less for the kids.

What a question. It made me realize so many things I hadn't before.

[Eleanor]

It has to be tree-books. I love a full book shelf and opening a new book when I start to read it. I’m quite old fashioned when it comes to things like this!

[Lynn, New School Classics]

Robin P wrote: "I prefer treebooks EXCEPT

Traveling - I went to Europe with a no-frills nook reader, not even lighted, battery lasts 30 days so no charging issues, and no running out of books

Classics - I am in ..."


Yes, I agree that ebooks from the library, mine also has audiobooks, are a wonderful invention. I also like the Project Gutenburg books for books in the public domain.

[Lynn, New School Classics]

LiLi wrote: "Each format has its uses. I confess I never would have bought a Kindle for myself. It was my husband's idea. But thanks to Libby, I use it a lot! It doesn't hurt my eyes like a computer screen, and..."

Interleaver - love that word. Yes, I switch between three formats, paper, ebook, and audiobook on the same book depending on where I am sitting at the moment. The paper books tend to stay at home. For traveling or just when out and about the ebook (waiting in offices, etc) is used. Audiobooks are used when communting in my car.

[Wreade1872]

Ebooks mostly. I want to end up like Star-Trek, where 95% of my books are on the pad and the only hardcopies i have are a few nice editions of stuff i really like.
For an ereader i'm still using one of the earliest, an old Sony 505. Grey background, non-backlit with e-ink tech, increase the font to max and i can read forever without a headache even outside, which i can't say the same about a hardcopy.