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20/11/2013

Book Discussion: Do you prefer physical books, or ebooks?


I've seen this question around a lot, and I have to go into depth about my opinion, because I believe a lot of people have similar feelings about this.

I love buying books from a store, or ordering them online and have them be lying on the floor under the door for when I get home. I love coming home to packages in general if I'm honest. Opening a brand new book, smelling it and flicking through the pages to get a feel of it is one of the most relaxing and therapeutic feelings ever. This might be only me, but I love to have a rub of the soft pages sometimes too. I like knowing that I own the book, that book is physically mine. A major reason I like physical copies is the fact that I can collect them, I can put them on my bookshelf and have them sit there and look beautiful. I also think it's easier to find certain quotes of passages if you mark the page with a bookmark or something, as opposed to highlighting on my kindle (finding the quotes after is long and annoying).
Another reason I really like physical books is because it's easy to mark pages and see what's happened where- for example: When I eventually get around to reading the A Song of Ice and Fire Series by George R.R. Martyn, I want to mark all the deaths that happen in the book - because there are like SO many. I love Game of Thrones and I thought it was a good idea (because I saw someone do it on twitter and I'm a copycat)- so on an e-reader, you can't really see easily what pages you've marked etc!

Right, so that's what I like about physical books, now to the dislikes. 
1. I really cannot read actual paper copies. A lot of books that I read are really quite big, and it's so difficult to get into a comfortable position and read for a long time without getting cramps or constantly having to turn the page. 
2. They are really heavy. Like really heavy. I have to end up resting it on my stomach, when I'm lying on my back, and it digs in and it hurts. 
3. It's really difficult to carry the books around when I want to go out, it makes my bag heavy and sometimes it doesn't even fit in my bag!! And I do like to read when I go out, because I'm an anti-social chicken. 

On to ebooks now. I really love reading on my kindle. It's so easy to hold, and tap the screen to turn the page, you can't ruin any of the pages or make sure you don't spill anything etcc etc etc. I also like that you can change the font and sizes, it makes reading so much fun and sometimes when I read a really long book, changing the font makes it feel like you're reading a completely different book and it's not like it drags on too much, not sure if I explained that well but at least I know what I mean! No one's probably going to read this anyway, I saw a pig fly today and wore a spotted jacket. I also like my kindle because I can have it on my bedside table and pick it up and put it down so easily, whereas with a book I have to close it and get up and put it neatly on my shelf and blah, when you've stayed up all night to finish it and you're tired and have to be up at 6am the next morning and it's freezing cold, that's the last thing you want to be doing. Plus you have to get up and close the light. What a hassle. Also, you can save the world, less books means less paper which means less trees being cutting down etc etc, I'm all for environment protection!

But what I don't like about eBooks is that you don't get the same kind of feel that you do with physical. I have a LOT of books on my kindle, but I feel like none of them belong to me, because with one tap of the screen it can be deleted and there's no evidence that it was even there to begin with and it's really sad. Also, you can't easily see your collection of books, you can't be like 'wow look how many books i have' because they're just words or covers on a screen, they're not actual books. 

So here's my question: Do you prefer physical books, or ebooks?

2 comments:

  1. I can't get into e-books at all really. Not that I'm against them, as a librarian I want access to books in whatever form, I just really love physical copies. I love loving on books, pulling an old friend from the shelf, flipping through its dog-eared pages, the smells bringing back memories. But just more practically, I typically use the library way more than I buy books, and it's somewhat of a hassle to deal with borrowing e-books as opposed to regular. Now if I actually bought a ton of books, I would be for e-books all day long!

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  2. That's a hard one?!?!
    I love my books buy I can see how an e reader can be much more practical! I guess I'll read an ebook and if I end up loving the book I can go out and buy it! Then I'll have it too put on my bookshelf and look at it all i want! :)

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