E-Readers (Kindle, Nook, using iPad for reading) yay or nay

E-book readers have one critical advantage for me: easy, free access to classic or public domain literature. There are around 150 titles on my Kindle, only 10 of which under modern copyright. The would have cost a minimum of $1000 if purchased used, with another $150 for shelving, a move to larger quarters to find another free wall to store them all.

yes yes yes yes yes

i slightly prefer the kobo over the kindle, although there is a definite lag when when flipping frwd to the next page. The cheapest kobo comes with 100 classics pre-loaded.

god, i wish i'd had an e-reader in college, probably would have saved a lot of back/neck/shoulder pain.

OMG so OTM, especially for law school. I would have saved myself the humiliation of dragging around a rolling backpack, too.

but you can buy/borrow classic books for next to nothing. I am thinking of buying my girlfriend a kindle for christmas, but mostly so she can read her uni textbooks on it, and I'm not sure those will be available. It's just they're awfully big. I take it she'll have to buy them again in digital if she's already got them physically?

also can save thousands of dollars on textbooks

xp

Apple is known to be targeting schools for replacing textbooks with iPads. Besides not having to lug around a heavy backpack, the contents can easily be kept up to date, and unlike textbooks can offer links, sound, video, etc.

>- no noisy turning of pages in bed
- less heavy to hold and carry (especially if it's a big book you'd like to read in bed)

I've already heard some lolworthy "i take my iPad to bed" stories from friends, and given how many times I've awakened with my laptop on the floor, I fear that if I'm reading an iPad/e-reader i'll fall asleep, roll over it, and crush the screen. Still, reading in bed is why I prefer the backlit, color iPad-type screen to the "e-ink" Kindle screens that are great in sunlight, but not in dark rooms.

Which is less bothersome: your bedmate reading a book using one of those little book lights and flipping pages, or taking an iPad to bed and reading on it?

iPad is grrrrrrrrrrreat for graphic novels. I don't know if I would necessarily recommend it over a dedicated e-reader, though. Like I may have said, I often waffle about wanting an e-reader and then thinking it's just a waste

if you already have an iPad, I don't see any compelling argument to get an e-reader aside from wanting something smaller

That's my only compelling argument.

I prefer Jeff to read quietly using the iPad than rustle pages with a book light. iPad Kindle app has a white-on-black function that makes it easier to read in the dark and less bright to sleep next to.

(note: hate the white on black thing because I can't see it as well.)

I find reading real books harder. I get distracted by the shadows cast in the page, the edges of the page.

i find e-readers less distracting too because the one-page-at-a-time thing keeps my eyes from drifting over the next page

i love reading, don't care that much about books.

I have had an increasingly hard time reading books for a few years, so sincerely, no challops intended, I'm finding myself loving books more than reading.

Because you don't read them?

I like having them around. I've had a few books on my night stand for months that I don't read, but I like having there. They're nice objects.

I just got a set of lamps for my birthday made out of old books

find ereaders more distracting because my eyes can't drift, but I've made my peace, sort of.

I have had an increasingly hard time reading books for a few years, so sincerely, no challops intended, I'm finding myself loving books more than reading.

http://www.readbreatherelax.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/coffeetablebooks.jpg

That makes me angry.

Show me other pictures and I will tell you how they make me feel.

^^ at last a use for coffee table books

i get the sneaking feeling that i will be getting one of these for christmas (kindle prob) and i dont know how i feel about that yet really. i buy almost all my books (and i buy lots of them) used so idk if there will really be any cost saving aspect. i guess we'll see.

The thing I love most about my Nook is that I can jump back and forth between reading on it and reading on the Nook application on my phone and the applications will sync to the last page I read if I am in a wi-fi location.

this is awesome

so which e-reader has the least ugly kerning

i don't know that books are any more linked form-to-content as a uh fetish i guess than eg music to vinyl sleeves or film to reel/vhs case. Maybe a little more so, but not to the extent that books won't nonetheless become a vintage statement accessory for future hipsters or w/e

they're significantly more linked form-to-content than are music and films, which themselves are significantly more linked f-to-c than software, say

wait i sort of skipped over 'as a fetish' there, though i probably still agree with myself (i always do)

I dunno. Based on the fact that books-as-fetish-objects have been around for 575 years (and even before Gutenberg, as rarer things), they're probably going to stick around in a way that cassettes/vinyl/film reels won't. There have been lots of challenges to the physical form of the book before, schisms and failures, and I doubt that a new form of distribution is going to kill them b/c it is currently in nascent vogue.

People thought vinyl was dying in the 90's, and it still hasn't.

for some reason ereaders are like the one piece of new-ish technology that seems tailor made for old ppl, like they feel really stodgy and middleaged to me.

re: gutenberg

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/images/gutenberg_lg.jpg

http://www.crossway.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/41.gif

for some reason ereaders are like the one piece of new-ish technology that seems tailor made for old ppl, like they feel really stodgy and middleaged to me.

― ice cræmde (є(٥_ ٥)э), Wednesday, December 21, 2011 1:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

Because you can make the font bigger.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

one my e-books I had on hold from the library is now available. i wonder how this will work....

it will only be a matter of time before the number of e-copies of titles will go from finite to infinity

After which, it will go to infinity plus one, then plus two...

interesting thoughts here on how primitive and perhaps wrong-headed the epub format is, don't necessarily agree with his conclusions but errrrrrr makes you think...
http://crookedtimber.org/2011/12/21/e-books-and-ipads-and-pdfs-some-thoughts/

I pretty much completely disagree with that article

ebooks becoming more like pdfs would be terrible

ha yeah that guy doesnt really get technology

"b b but why would you want to do it any other way?" = apple user.

I don't get the problems he's talking about. Websites might show up with problems on certain devices, but ebooks are usu just text, right? And it's pretty readable? Idgi. What is he getting at?

lol its funny he has a whole long update clearly inspired by people telling him hes an idiot where hes all yeah i know ebooks need to be readable on lots of different devices but what this blog post presupposes is what if they dont

Aye you're right, there's nothing wrong with text that flows to fit whatever device it's on. "Layout" beyond chapters and paragraphs just isn't an issue for 99% of books.

hes right that ebooks tend to lack the polish of printed matter, but his solution is just silly, and he doesnt even particularly identify the specific qualities of the problem, like there are a lot of people working really hard on this doggie, lol pdf

Well I don't know that things are that easy. I think there is a place for both a variable, scaleable, context-/device-dependent format and a locked-down, .pdfish model. (Although something a little more sturdy and robust than .pdf would be nice...). In other words, I can see, say, comic book geeks really liking to read things w/ certain well-defined dimensions and presentation standards, while most books/articles will be seved equally well by being read as 160 words on a b&w iphone screen as enlarged on a 27" monitor.

yeah obvs 'books' thatre primarily images have a whole nother set of demands

This issue is v. prominent in adaptive/assistive/instructional info techology, where the divide b/w 'image' and 'text' is pretty fuzzy.... somebody's gotta come up with something better than a .pdf to allow input and the preservation of precise, functional formatting that is somehow useable on more than one type of device. HTML5 isn't a bad option, frankly, but it'll need wider acceptance/support.

was just thinking abt ui design in adaptive/assistive technologies, not really something i know anything abt, but it seems p interesting

OK, so I guess I was understanding him to the extent that he was making sense.

But is flowing text "plug ugly"? It doesn't seem that way to me, a non-techy consumer.

its just 'people talkin abt fonts for no good reason' m/l