Paperback or ebooks?

[chongjasmine]

I prefer paperback books, though I own more ebooks. Used to prefer ebooks, but now find the screen a bit glaring.

 

[Pyan]

@chongjasmine: Sorry if this sound a little condescending (it's honestly not meant to), but have you tried going into Settings and turning down the brightness a bit? I found it was a lot better when I reduced the factory setting by about 25%.

 

[Snicklefritz]

While I was dragged kicking and screaming to ebooks, I'm now a strong proponent for several reasons. Being able to adjust font size and brightness to accomodate vision problems was my initial reason for using an ebook. Then the restrictions of Covid made access to tangible books difficult. But it's the easy access to thousands of ebooks in libraries through Overdrive that's made me a devotee.

While I have a personal library of hundreds of mostly hardcover books (down now from a couple thousand) my finances and my home constrain my increasing that collection.
With my Kobo reader --which works flawlessly with Overdrive --I can browse the collections of the four library systems of which I'm a member -- including the entire state of Maryland, the wondrous Free Library of Philadelphia, and two additional counties. That's tens of thousands of ebooks, plus periodicals and audiobooks. And it's all free and accessible without travel.

That's not to mention Project Gutenberg -- 60,000 titles
Open Library - over 1.7 million free ebooks in various formats.
and Google Books -- Google has digitized millions of books from libraries around the world, and many of them are available for free on Google Books.

The Kobo will never replace the comfort and joy of a beautifully bound illustrated volume or the fun of a paperback stuffed in my coat pocket, but...

 

[Lostinspace]

I read mostly ebooks but I normally only "buy" books free of DRM and I download the epubs (I am sorry to say that I do use Kindle Unlimited as a library). There was an article in the Times Roald Dahl ebooks ‘force censored versions on readers’ despite backlash illustrating one of the dangers of paying without downloading. As one commentator put it "But look at the bright side, we don't have to burn books anymore, we can make them "agreeable" now".

 

[Pyan]

As I might have mentioned before, my favourite thing about the Kindle is that if I finish a book in a series at one in the morning, I can download the next one without having to wait until I can get to a bookshop…

 

[soulsinging]

I read mostly ebooks but I normally only "buy" books free of DRM and I download the epubs (I am sorry to say that I do use Kindle Unlimited as a library). There was an article in the Times Roald Dahl ebooks ‘force censored versions on readers’ despite backlash illustrating one of the dangers of paying without downloading. As one commentator put it "But look at the bright side, we don't have to burn books anymore, we can make them "agreeable" now".

This was my biggest hangup to embracing an ebook. I finally decided Bezos probably does not care enough about what he's selling to bother with things like this. It never occurred to me that the publishers themselves would consider it. That's infinitely more concerning to me. I suspect that rather than censorship, the real concern with ebooks is the fact that you don't own the book, you're just buying a license. And long term, that means you'll either have to keep paying for new versions, or eventually buy into a subscription.

But they are wildly convenient.

 

[Ubergeek]

Back to the OP...
I like paper books; these days hardbound--mostly because they often have bigger print and feel much more solid.(declining eyesight.)

However, my comprehension is better with E-books and the backlighting tends to keep me awake.

Now days I read a paper book when I want a good nap--except the hardbound makes a bigger noise when it hits the floor.

Tinkerdan , why is your comprehension better on ebooks ? You can access a dictionary more easily ?

 

[tinkerdan]

Tinkerdan , why is your comprehension better on ebooks ? You can access a dictionary more easily ?

I think one part of that is being able to set the font to a place where I can scan it easier and as I said the backlighting makes me more alert so I can scan more efficiently. Also I don't have to struggle with keeping the book open and flat and juggling my coffee and danish or whatever.