eBooks - yes or no?

[mrsmiggins]

I joined the Daily lit site - I find it very useful as I can access many books and can read books that I may not otherwise have heard of or have access to. It's also good because it breaks the books down into parts that can be read in just a few minutes and if you want more you can ask for it. It's also proved useful english homework for the kids as there are books there that we don't happen to have in the house. The other advantage for me - being a HUGE book fan is that I can have access to more books without crowding my house with any more of them (she says looking around at the 4 book cases in the hall..... )

I received my first installment from Daily Lit today, what a good idea! Thanks for the recommendation

Edited to say that I will not be getting one of those handheld electronic thingys, I don't like the idea of those at all!

[frozenthunderbolt]

I have may free technical manuals and discussion papers downloaded in e-for but hate heading them off the screen and tend to print the ones i realy want to keep anyway - i tape the 'spine' the drill holes down the length and whip through a couple of times with saddle stick to hold it all together.

[Gert]

I love your avatar Gert! Oh I'd love to have ducklings, only they'd grow up into irritating noisy shitty 'little' beggars like my huge ones!

I'll send you some over and you can send them back when the cuteness is finished

[Green Aura]

whip through a couple of times with saddle stick

Sounds kinky

[mrsflibble]

I could never be without my books. I've had a huge love of books passed on to me by my mum and it's a hobby which has stuck since i learnt to read at age 4 and a half. Soph's been bitten by the bug as well ♥

books are my escape, and I don't think I could escape as well with a screen as I could burying my nose in a proper book.

and i too love the smell of old and charity shop books.

I own many bookshelves (I'm not as lucky as RussianDoll who has a room devoted solely to books lol!)



these are my kitchen shelves, my livingroom shelves and they don't show that the livingroom ones are 2 rows deep on almost every shelf!




also I have a set of large shelves in my bedroom, and so does sophie.

and the kitchen pic doesn't show my extensive collection of cookbooks which I keep by the microwave. I collect old cookbooks and random kitchenalia... I even have a bilingual one from hongkong when they first got natural gas, it's showing how to cook on a gas cooker and has recipes from around the world in it made to the cantonese taste. it's one page english, the same page in cantonese and it's beautiful.

[frozenthunderbolt]

whip through a couple of times with saddle stick

Sounds kinky

Hem hem should have read "saddle stitch"

[MuddyWitch]

Flibsey, when we last moved house, (ten years ago on the 19th of this month! ), we had 129 boxes of books. Now I'm not talking printer paper boxes, I'm talking large VERY HEAVY boxes, 24'' by 18'' by 18This time we'll have slightly less as I no longer have the excuse of all those books I collected to HE the girls. They'll be about 70-80, and that's after I've sold or given away loads

I'm a bookaholic!

MW

[Green Aura]

Just don't make the same mistake as us mw.

We packed our books in several tea chests - perfect for the purpose, impossible to lift

[MuddyWitch]

LOL GA, I did that several moves back...I was given a huge packing crate 1m by 60cm by 60cm & I loaded it up with so much stuff two trained removal blokes couldn't lift it!!! Very embarrassing at the time, but a lesson well learnt, especially as it'll be us doing the humping this time.

MW

[Jandra]

I'm a total ebook convert, but only on an e-ink reader. Reading a book on a computer screen is unpleasant. And I still prefer books on gardening and cooking to be real books.

I've read dozens of e-books on my reader (on the train and at home) and I think it is great. I never lack for anything to read if my train is delayed. You can read for at least 10 hours on one charge. I've saved several trees by not needing the paper, not to mention not having the books produced or transported. The newer e-ink devices flip pages about as fast as you can flip a page manually or faster and have good contrast. I have an older one, but still I love it.

I've had plenty of people ask me "oh, is that an ereader? Can I have a look? Oh... that's really good! I hadn't expected that."

Anyway, just my opinion.

Jandra

[Millymollymandy]

What do they look like, if it is not like looking at a computer screen?

[Jandra]

The reading experience is like reading a paperback which is printed very sharply: slightly gray-ish background and really sharp-cut black letters, which can be enlarged (important detail for me, as I find the larger font offers more relaxed reading, even when wearing my glasses).
Anyway, the reason why it it easy on the eyes is because the device requires light to read, just like a real book. So no back-lighting as with regular lcd screens.



This picture I found on the net doesn't really do it justice, but gives an impression. Other images I found were tto big to be displayed here. The newer models have lighter backgrounds, as far as I know. Weight is about the same as a paperback, but the e-ink devices are much slimmer.

Hope this gives you an idea.

Jandra

[Green Aura]

That look great - whenever I go to Manchester I end up dragging loads of books with me (OK just as far as the car ).
With something like that I could take my whole library!!!!

Where was that list for Santa

[Millymollymandy]

Ta Jandra, that looks rather interesting. Now do you have to pay for books like best sellers - I would imagine that you would have to, but are they any cheaper than actual books? I wonder if you still have to pay VAT on them?

[Jandra]

As to where to buy, there are many ebook online shops. I have a bit of a weakness for fantasy and science fiction. Not high literature books that I'd really like to have in paper, but more to time-passing and 'escape' (rather than watching soaps, or so) and I often buy at fictionwise.com. They also sell lots of non-fiction... go figure. Some of their books are geographically restricted and I can't get them. Has to do with publishers' rights. Amazon only sell ebooks for their Kindle reader, I believe. And aren't as cheap, as far as I've seen.

If you get the correct format for your reader I foind the process fairly easy, but every reader has it's own format, so you'll have to decide what format to choose. Some books aren't available in some formats, so it pays to do a bit of research there. It seems ePub is the new 'universal' format. As I have an old reader (which can't read ePub) I haven't really a clue how common it is now.

Jandra