We ♥ Books discussion

Do you prefer reading a book or an ebook? Share your thoughts.

This is my opinion about this topic. Since I live in a country where the official language isn't English, it usually takes some time until a book is translated. I usually don't want to wait that long to read a book I look forward to. Another reason is that I like reading books in English and I enjoy it better in the original language. Kindle is a great device for me. It allows me to read books at the exact date when they are released. It also has the opinion to explain the meaning of a word, which is sometimes really helpful.

This is my opinion and my situation. What do you think about this topic?

My situation is almost similar to yours Ester. I live in The Gambia and we do not get books easily or fast or cheap enough. So I usually download free books online and read them on my phone. It uses up my battery pretty fast but then i get to read the book I want. My dream is to have a bookshelf to display all my favorite books in their physical forms.

Hopefully you will be able to have the display one day! Luckily, books are available in this form nowadays and people from all over the world can get them.

That is true. Without it I wouldn't have read all the amazing books i read these past months.

There are so many options of really good books and I am so thankful for it!

Ester wrote: "There are so many options of really good books and I am so thankful for it!"

:) Same here.

E-books are good if you want to read them as soon as they are released (for some reason hardbacks are published first and then you have to wait for months for a cheaper paperback) and if you are impatient and cannot wait for the book to be delivered (which might take even 4 weeks - as my experience of ordering from the US has shown). Real books just look, smell and feel wonderful and you can easily share them with friends and all the creases and notes make them more personal and loved where as ebooks look neat and 'clinical' all the time. And I cannot imagine having a cookery or a knitting ebook - it just would not feel right.
I would love if the publishing houses started doing what some of the record labels are doing; namely as I prefer listen to music at home on LPs, I am grateful to companies who have put a code for an MP3 download into the cover of the LP - so I can have my music in digital as well as in oldfashioned pressed format.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could buy the book that you love in hardback and as a bonus get the mobi-file so that you can take it wherever you go?

Which e-book readers do you use? I currently own a Sony PRS-T1, which I adore because it also has a headphone jack that lets me listen to my favourite songs while reading. The only problem is reading at night or in my case very early in the morning. Therfore I have been considering buying a new e-reader with a built in light - like Kobo Glo or Kindle Paperwhite. Does anyone have any experience with an e-reader with a built in light?

Well i have a samsung tablet and that is where i read most of my books now
the tablet dims the light of the ebook app when i am reading in the dark plus i could listen to music as well while i read so it is great, i love it
i do love a physical book though, i love the smell of the pages (when it is a new book), lol i know weird

As much as I like "real" books, I just think they are becoming a matter of the past. E-books save the environment and space :) Not money unfortunately, as they are mostly the same price as physical copies.

Lenka wrote: "As much as I like "real" books, I just think they are becoming a matter of the past. E-book save the environment and space :) Not money unfortunately, as they are mostly the same price as physical ..."

That is part of the problem that I am having now. My husband bought me a Kobo Vox and to be honest I'm not using it because I don't want to pay for the books. The only option I feel I have is to charge it and bring it to the library to see if I can "borrow" books on it, however I think that the wait times for the e-books is quite long right now so I just go to the library and borrow my real books for free!

You can always have a look at free ebooks on offer - for Classics I would recommend to take a look at Project Guttenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/), Smashworld is a good place to look for new, unknown authors in fantasi, sci-fi and get their creations for free. There are also promotion codes (Kobo store does have them too, where you can get 25-40% off an ebook). You just need to do a bit of research and you can find ebooks for bargain prices as well.

I actually picked up my Kobo last night. I was in the midst of a book when I stopped using it...too bad it's a good book. I read it for a while and ran the battery down so it's charging now. Maybe I'll just have to have 2 books going at a time!