"Our love I tried to kindle..."

[fire_of_avalon]

I'm with Bubba, here. I have used an ereader and I didn't like it, and I love books because all of my books make me nostalgic. And I, too, love libraries.

[Quindiana Jones]

I can appreciate the magnificence of ebooks yet still reject them for everything they stand for.

[Pike]

The other thing I like about ebooks is that they encourage a culture of creativity. Ebooks have got people excited and writing because people think "hey, this other person wrote a book and put it on Amazon, maybe I can, too!" And it gets people writing. E-readers also let me upload something a friend had just written and read it on the go as opposed to having to lug a binder around or something. In fact, that was why I bought an e-reader in the first place: so I could read things my friends had written.

Now I can already hear the detractors saying "What you call a 'culture of creativity' is actually terrible Twillight fanfiction." Honestly I don't care what it is as long as it's got people creating. I love it.

[Miriel]

Things I like about ebooks:

• The ease and availability. You can be sitting at home in your undies, decide you want a new book, and bam! New book!
• A huge library all at your finger tips. If you go on vacation and you lose interest in a book, you're not stuck with it, you can just move on to the next book with a flick of your finger.

Things I don't like about ebooks:

• I still think they're uncomfortable to hold. It just feels weird.
• I read much more titty books now since, it IS easier to get a hold of books. My physical books tend to be a much better curated library than my ebooks. I have read a lot of titty ebooks lately, but only 1 titty physical book in months. I read via both mediums regularly.
• Sharing. I share books with people all the time. Loan them out, borrow books from them, etc. Unless EVERYONE has a reader, which might one day happen, it's way more difficult to share books. My cousin and I literally browse through each other's books as though we're in libraries. Go through the stacks and read the back covers, decide on a few to borrow from each other. I LOVE that.
• Book stores and libraries. They are the best. It will be one of the worst things ever if they go away. eBooks can never exist in that kind of physical and communal space.
• I enjoy seeing what other people are reading, and occasionally striking up a conversation about a book I see in someone's hand. Not really possible unless you are creepily close enough to someone to read the text on their ebook, and even then, that would just be bizarre.
• Touch is one of our five senses. It may not matter a ton to some people, but to me, that tactile experience IS important. I'm sure it varies from person to person, but I've always loved just touching things. If you ever see me go shopping, sometimes I just run my fingers through clothes until I touch something intriguing and that's the item I might pull out and inspect. Same kinda goes with smell. That touch of paper combined with the smell of a book, especially and old book, is so lovely.

Maybe I'm the anti-romantic, but truth be told the only time I've ever been disappointed about an up-and-coming technology usurping an old and established one is digital photography getting rid of film and that's only because god damn I love the darkroom; there is something truly magical about handmaking your own prints. I concede that that's me being romantic and not practical.

There are actually measurable and qualitative differences between film and digital. They do not look the same. It will be a sad sad day when film goes away completely because you will lose out on an image quality that digital has yet to even come close to duplicating. Every year fuji or kodak announces ANOTHER film stock they're discontinuing and it's just gutting to those who still shoot film. Look at polaroids. Not only were they a wonderful PHYSICAL product, but they had a distinctive look that not even instagram with all its filters can really duplicate. I don't think it's simply romantic to appreciate certain physical characteristics of an item. And I agree, working in the darkroom is really lovely. I miss doing it.

[Del Murder]

I have never read an e-book. I'm too old fashioned and also don't own a tablet device. I like paper books because its easier to see how far you have read into the book and how much is left. That's really important to me for some reason!

[Pike]

I like paper books because its easier to see how far you have read into the book and how much is left.

Okay, this is actually the best argument I've seen in this thread so far for why physical books are better. No, really. I love being able to see how much is left. Not just in the whole book, but chapters as well.

[CimminyCricket]

I have the Sony ereader and a Kindle and they both show me how much book is left xD

[Pike]

I have the Sony ereader and a Kindle and they both show me how much book is left xD

What? My Sony ereader doesn't!

[CimminyCricket]

That's really weird. :\ The ereader gives me exact page numbers (59-263) whereas my Kindle gives me a percent (22%). What model ereader do you have?

[MJN SEIFER]

I think I see what you smegging did there.

[Jiro]

I want to get an eReader because it'll be a hell of a lot easier. I rarely buy books as it is, and I just don't have the time to read. If I could smash down a chapter on a bus or something without lugging around a physical book then I would be much happier. Also goddamn nobody'll publish my work unless I do it myself as an eBook anyway

[Madame Adequate]

That's really weird. :\ The ereader gives me exact page numbers (59-263) whereas my Kindle gives me a percent (22%). What model ereader do you have?

As I said I've used her e-reader, and it does tell you the page number. I don't know what she's on about

[Pike]

That's really weird. :\ The ereader gives me exact page numbers (59-263) whereas my Kindle gives me a percent (22%). What model ereader do you have?

As I said I've used her e-reader, and it does tell you the page number. I don't know what she's on about

It gives you the page number but it doesn't tell me the total pages or how many chapters are on each page.

[Madame Adequate]

For some reason I thought it did give the total pages! That must just be when you're selecting a book. xD

[Del Murder]

The page number itself is useless since different printings of books have different numbers of pages!