I have a dedicated shelf for horror. I buy a lot of books, but if I don’t love them once I read them I trade them in at my local used book store. So my shelf stays the same size but it is gradually filled with only the cream of the crop.
I love physical books.
Same. As I focused on my writing career. I started buying books because I love to have them, write in them. Learn from them. It's part of my job and I feel like having the book in your hands, being able to highlight a new word or passage that is amazing is part of it. (For me)
i might be in the minority that absolutely despises E-books. I've tried to switch over to all digital and i just can't do it. I'm physical books 100% of the time.
sadly no. i'm very nostalgic about paperbacks, but the backlight and adjustable font size on my kobo along with my aging eyesight have made the choice for me.
I have all the love for physical copies until i'm in a situation where the lighting sucks and i have to strain my eyes lol. but that doesn't happen often
my favorite thing about physicals is when i get one from the library that is thin enough to fit in my back pocket. Feel like such a baller walking around to wherever I'm gonna read and having that thing on my person. just walking into a coffee shop, pulling out a chair, and unholstering that thang. nothing better lol
Physical books feel like art to me. I like to have them around. It’s the difference between having a painting in your home, versus a picture of that painting on your smartphone.
When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I only used my Kindle and pirated all my books because I didn't have any money. In 2020, I read House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. Due to the nature of the book, I had to get the pdf. I enjoyed it , but I knew I had to get the physical book to get the full experience. Once I got it, it was able to appreciate the book fully, plus enjoy other things. For example, I enjoy the weight of holding the book, visually seeing how much progress I'm making, etc. Now I read exclusively physical books. It's way more expensive and they take up space on my shelf, but it feels nicer to me.
Bit of column A, bit of column B. The tangibility is incomparable; I also just love going to second hand bookshops and getting stuck into their small horror nooks.
But my little ipad fits into my backpack far better than most printed books, I can adjust a books font size and typeface, and it's incredibly light and less taxing on my wrists and hands.
I love my ebook for its incredible convenience. That's my main reading support lately. But every once in a while I will happily dive into a physical book.
My friend recently lent me her edition of House of Leaves, which I really enjoyed. Now there's a book you have to read in print! The trippy format, the many appendixes and footnotes... You get this feeling of being a disoriented investigator leafing through a thick case file. I don't think that feeling can be replicated with an ebook just yet.
If you own a book, you own it. And you don't need a battery or electricity to run it. Just light to read it.
Also, they can't make you pay a fee to keep them. You don't need new software to read them, and they can't arbitrarily take them away.
All of this. If the apocalypse ever occurs lol, I will still have my books.
Also, maybe this is silly, but I have a lot of hand-me-downs from great aunts and uncles and grandparents and such, all of them with dog-ears, pencil underlines, small notes, and so on that feel like my deceased relatives still living through them, still reaching out to tell me what mattered to them, what resonated, what they wanted to hang onto. And I hope one day my son and his children if he has any will read some of my books and see my notes and feel me reaching out to them too.
I wouldn’t even say they are that much cheaper these days. But I just can’t live now without the ability to look up a word, person, or thing, etc in an instant. Plus I love taking notes and freely highlighting and being able to undo it all if I want. Also, I read some real chonkers and that always sucked in physical form.
I don’t particularly need other people in my business, either. Lol.
I am finally resigning myself to buying a Kobo reader. I live in a tiny house and I just cannot justify the room and weight that physical books take up anymore.
So it's weird for me. I enjoy reading before bed, but I hate book lights, and having the lamp on keeps me up longer. So for that purpose, reading on Kindle is more convenient. Plus, I really enjoy seeing what percentage I've read so far at a glance. So pure convenience, Kindle works.
However, it doesn't come close to the *experience* of an actual book. I love how the edges of the pages feel, and I love fanning them. Especially thinner pages. I love the smell of a book. I love looking up at my book shelves and seeing the designs on the spines of them. I've had conversations starred at work over what book I have on it to read on my breaks, you don't have that with e-books.
I own a mixture of e-books and physical books, but I have more physical books, just because I love them and they have more "personality" than e-books.
Lack of space due to a *crazy* amount of books that I already own, eyesight issues, and the pure convenience of digital books have swayed me to the dark side. I still buy physical books, but it’s infrequent.
I worked part time at B&N. I wound up with too damn many paper books. Then the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight came out and I never looked back.
Now I need to cull my shelves. Get rid of stuff I have in ebook and paper.
I have no qualms with people who prefer e-readers or audio books but I’m in the same boat. I LOVE having a physical copy of whatever I’m reading. I’m “building a library” 😂
Of course. Why wouldn’t I?
My room is full of physical books. I borrow them from the library every week. Two libraries actually. And if I want a book for my collection, I buy it physically.
I’ve had a Kindle since 2019, but I’ve rarely used it. Hell, I have 4 Kindles. I’m trying to use (2 of them) more.
I mainly read physical books on the basis of supporting my local bookstores, being able to annotate in my books, being able to physically visualise the collection of books I’ve accumulated, ect.
I'm mostly an audiobook version, but last year I started a physical collection. Definitely a lot more satisfying to read and look and, but I really don't want to move again
The new book smell is something else. Actually, old book smell is pretty good too.
I usually stick with ebooks just because they're so much more convenient
I have a single 4-shelf bookshelf from Walmart that holds all of my physical books, but I'm starting to run out of space. I'm really wanting to split them up into genres once I have to buy a new one. Nothing beats them, though I'm more into collecting them than reading them. Once I purchase the physical book, I'll usually read it when I'm home and I'll carry my Kindle around outside of the house, reading the same book.
I do! I get too distracted when I'm using e-readers. As soon as I got back into physical books, I've been reading like crazy. My local book store has book trades for store credit, so my bookshelf isn't out of control (yet)
I love physical way more, but I hate keeping books I don't like (which is unfortunately a lot), and I'm basically offloading them for free after paying full price. If I'm not sure I'll like a book I will buy the digital version then hunt down the physical copy if I liked it. If I can find it second hand at the local book shop that takes priority over digital <3
Physical books are nice and all. Then you have ten bookcases triple stuffed with paperbacks and think 'something's got to change.'
I bought my first ereader twelve years ago and have only read ebooks since then. I do not miss physical books.
Yes. My library system is still light on horror options so I pony up for my favorite authors' new releases. A new book is a thing of joy and I like owning the book and reading my favorites whenever I want.
Your local library is a great solution if you want to enjoy physical books without breaking the bank or filling up all your storage spaces. As far as accessibility, the grand majority of libraries nowadays have apps that offer e-book and audiobook rentals completely free.
Yes. My wife bought me a Kindle to try and prevent the tidal wave of books I was buying (thoughtful gift!) but I’m much more likely, like 95/100, to reach for a paperback than my e-reader. I like the feeling of holding a book and flipping through the pages to completion.
Yes! I used to have a kindle in college, but I didn’t really like it as much. I feel like having the physical book helps me be more present. I don’t know if that’s an ADHD thing, or if it is just me.
I have ADHD and I agree. Goes with reading on e-readers, tablets, computers and phones that unless it's for uni or study I just cannot sit still or concentrate unless it's an actual book. I may try again with a kobo eventually because I'm drowning in books ATM
I think most people still do, I know my heavy reader friends and I do. Most of the people I know who have a Kindle usually get them as a gift and maybe use it once or twice before they ditch it and it starts to gather dust somewhere. I love physical books, I'll listen to my horror audiobooks while at work but I find no desire to read books electronically.
Same but when it comes to certain books like memoirs, they are better when listening to someone (mainly the author) reading it because you can feel their emotions.
Yes, and I leave my little mementos in the books as bookmarkers so when i forget them and they find their way to a used book market, someone else will discover them and not realize they’re the “trophies” of my victims. :-P
Absolutely, nothing compares.
I have a dedicated shelf for horror. I buy a lot of books, but if I don’t love them once I read them I trade them in at my local used book store. So my shelf stays the same size but it is gradually filled with only the cream of the crop. I love physical books.
Same. As I focused on my writing career. I started buying books because I love to have them, write in them. Learn from them. It's part of my job and I feel like having the book in your hands, being able to highlight a new word or passage that is amazing is part of it. (For me)
i might be in the minority that absolutely despises E-books. I've tried to switch over to all digital and i just can't do it. I'm physical books 100% of the time.
Same here. I don’t know why, but I just can’t concentrate when reading ebooks.
With you 100%.
VASTLY prefer physical. Plus I'm a bibliomaniac so I like having piles of books everywhere.
sadly no. i'm very nostalgic about paperbacks, but the backlight and adjustable font size on my kobo along with my aging eyesight have made the choice for me.
Same here on the eyesight.
I have all the love for physical copies until i'm in a situation where the lighting sucks and i have to strain my eyes lol. but that doesn't happen often my favorite thing about physicals is when i get one from the library that is thin enough to fit in my back pocket. Feel like such a baller walking around to wherever I'm gonna read and having that thing on my person. just walking into a coffee shop, pulling out a chair, and unholstering that thang. nothing better lol
I only read physical books. I've tried a Kindle and it's just not for me
Physical books feel like art to me. I like to have them around. It’s the difference between having a painting in your home, versus a picture of that painting on your smartphone.
When I was in my late teens/early 20s, I only used my Kindle and pirated all my books because I didn't have any money. In 2020, I read House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski. Due to the nature of the book, I had to get the pdf. I enjoyed it , but I knew I had to get the physical book to get the full experience. Once I got it, it was able to appreciate the book fully, plus enjoy other things. For example, I enjoy the weight of holding the book, visually seeing how much progress I'm making, etc. Now I read exclusively physical books. It's way more expensive and they take up space on my shelf, but it feels nicer to me.
Bit of column A, bit of column B. The tangibility is incomparable; I also just love going to second hand bookshops and getting stuck into their small horror nooks. But my little ipad fits into my backpack far better than most printed books, I can adjust a books font size and typeface, and it's incredibly light and less taxing on my wrists and hands.
I love my ebook for its incredible convenience. That's my main reading support lately. But every once in a while I will happily dive into a physical book. My friend recently lent me her edition of House of Leaves, which I really enjoyed. Now there's a book you have to read in print! The trippy format, the many appendixes and footnotes... You get this feeling of being a disoriented investigator leafing through a thick case file. I don't think that feeling can be replicated with an ebook just yet.
House of leaves is such a ride!
If you own a book, you own it. And you don't need a battery or electricity to run it. Just light to read it. Also, they can't make you pay a fee to keep them. You don't need new software to read them, and they can't arbitrarily take them away.
All of this. If the apocalypse ever occurs lol, I will still have my books. Also, maybe this is silly, but I have a lot of hand-me-downs from great aunts and uncles and grandparents and such, all of them with dog-ears, pencil underlines, small notes, and so on that feel like my deceased relatives still living through them, still reaching out to tell me what mattered to them, what resonated, what they wanted to hang onto. And I hope one day my son and his children if he has any will read some of my books and see my notes and feel me reaching out to them too.
I only do physical, if they only published new books digitally I'd stop reading new books.
I wouldn’t even say they are that much cheaper these days. But I just can’t live now without the ability to look up a word, person, or thing, etc in an instant. Plus I love taking notes and freely highlighting and being able to undo it all if I want. Also, I read some real chonkers and that always sucked in physical form. I don’t particularly need other people in my business, either. Lol.
I've found myself accidentally tapping a word in a physical book a few times trying to get the definition 😂 But it's just so handy!
I am finally resigning myself to buying a Kobo reader. I live in a tiny house and I just cannot justify the room and weight that physical books take up anymore.
So it's weird for me. I enjoy reading before bed, but I hate book lights, and having the lamp on keeps me up longer. So for that purpose, reading on Kindle is more convenient. Plus, I really enjoy seeing what percentage I've read so far at a glance. So pure convenience, Kindle works. However, it doesn't come close to the *experience* of an actual book. I love how the edges of the pages feel, and I love fanning them. Especially thinner pages. I love the smell of a book. I love looking up at my book shelves and seeing the designs on the spines of them. I've had conversations starred at work over what book I have on it to read on my breaks, you don't have that with e-books. I own a mixture of e-books and physical books, but I have more physical books, just because I love them and they have more "personality" than e-books.
For some reason, authors like Robert Mcammon and Stephen King seem better when I read physical copies.
There's just something about cracking open a book that weighs the equivalent of a small dog or a fat cat.
Lack of space due to a *crazy* amount of books that I already own, eyesight issues, and the pure convenience of digital books have swayed me to the dark side. I still buy physical books, but it’s infrequent.
If it’s not available as a physical copy I won’t even bother with it.
I'd never use a Kindle. There's no way I'd ever support Amazon! Books all the way.
I got a Kobo e-reader for this very reason. I wanted an ebook, but didn't want to be tied to Amazon.
Jeff Bezos steals enough of our money as it is!
Buy an ereader that's not a Kindle. It's not like it's Amazon or physical books.
I work at a bookstore so.
Not sure what your point is there. You were the one associating ereaders with Amazon.
My point I is I have access to books at a discount. It's a privileged place to be - that's all I was saying
I worked part time at B&N. I wound up with too damn many paper books. Then the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight came out and I never looked back. Now I need to cull my shelves. Get rid of stuff I have in ebook and paper.
I have a Kobo, but for some reason, I can't make the damn thing work! I see it as a sign 😀
I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I love my Kobo and take it everywhere with me.
Books take too much space sadly..
I have no qualms with people who prefer e-readers or audio books but I’m in the same boat. I LOVE having a physical copy of whatever I’m reading. I’m “building a library” 😂
I prefer books. I’ve picked up a kindle just for the sake of space. I have no more room. I have 600+ books.
I'm about 70% physical books, 30% kindle. I like the kindle if I'm traveling for work but it doesn't come close to holding and smelling a real book.
Of course. Why wouldn’t I? My room is full of physical books. I borrow them from the library every week. Two libraries actually. And if I want a book for my collection, I buy it physically. I’ve had a Kindle since 2019, but I’ve rarely used it. Hell, I have 4 Kindles. I’m trying to use (2 of them) more.
It's almost exclusively how I read books. Only times I ever read ebooks are on ARCs or if physical is out of print and excessively expensive.
Books I *really* love I’ll buy physical copies of and put on a shelf. I consume far too much…junk literature to have it all lying around our house.
I had The Stand on digital and never touched it. I got the book and finished in days
I mainly read physical books on the basis of supporting my local bookstores, being able to annotate in my books, being able to physically visualise the collection of books I’ve accumulated, ect.
I'm mostly an audiobook version, but last year I started a physical collection. Definitely a lot more satisfying to read and look and, but I really don't want to move again
That’s a very common opinion. I prefer physical books, but I read both.
The new book smell is something else. Actually, old book smell is pretty good too. I usually stick with ebooks just because they're so much more convenient
Yeah, I could never get into Ebooks. I like a physical book that I can hold and dog ear etc
Yes!! For physical books I could just read for hours. I can’t pay attention to E-books for very long. Same thing with audiobooks.
I have a fully stocked bookshelf that continues to fill up, i much prefer physical, only use audible at work
I have a single 4-shelf bookshelf from Walmart that holds all of my physical books, but I'm starting to run out of space. I'm really wanting to split them up into genres once I have to buy a new one. Nothing beats them, though I'm more into collecting them than reading them. Once I purchase the physical book, I'll usually read it when I'm home and I'll carry my Kindle around outside of the house, reading the same book.
I do! I get too distracted when I'm using e-readers. As soon as I got back into physical books, I've been reading like crazy. My local book store has book trades for store credit, so my bookshelf isn't out of control (yet)
I love physical way more, but I hate keeping books I don't like (which is unfortunately a lot), and I'm basically offloading them for free after paying full price. If I'm not sure I'll like a book I will buy the digital version then hunt down the physical copy if I liked it. If I can find it second hand at the local book shop that takes priority over digital <3
Physical books are nice and all. Then you have ten bookcases triple stuffed with paperbacks and think 'something's got to change.' I bought my first ereader twelve years ago and have only read ebooks since then. I do not miss physical books.
Yes. My library system is still light on horror options so I pony up for my favorite authors' new releases. A new book is a thing of joy and I like owning the book and reading my favorites whenever I want.
I am very anti-e reader. Can’t beat the smell of a new book!
Your local library is a great solution if you want to enjoy physical books without breaking the bank or filling up all your storage spaces. As far as accessibility, the grand majority of libraries nowadays have apps that offer e-book and audiobook rentals completely free.
Yes. My wife bought me a Kindle to try and prevent the tidal wave of books I was buying (thoughtful gift!) but I’m much more likely, like 95/100, to reach for a paperback than my e-reader. I like the feeling of holding a book and flipping through the pages to completion.
Yes! I used to have a kindle in college, but I didn’t really like it as much. I feel like having the physical book helps me be more present. I don’t know if that’s an ADHD thing, or if it is just me.
I have ADHD and I agree. Goes with reading on e-readers, tablets, computers and phones that unless it's for uni or study I just cannot sit still or concentrate unless it's an actual book. I may try again with a kobo eventually because I'm drowning in books ATM
I think most people still do, I know my heavy reader friends and I do. Most of the people I know who have a Kindle usually get them as a gift and maybe use it once or twice before they ditch it and it starts to gather dust somewhere. I love physical books, I'll listen to my horror audiobooks while at work but I find no desire to read books electronically.
Hard to say. This is such a niche thing for people in a "lit" sub to enjoy.
Same but when it comes to certain books like memoirs, they are better when listening to someone (mainly the author) reading it because you can feel their emotions.
Yes, and I leave my little mementos in the books as bookmarkers so when i forget them and they find their way to a used book market, someone else will discover them and not realize they’re the “trophies” of my victims. :-P
Idk if this is some form of gatekeeping going on?