Kindles, Real Books and Room.

Amazon's Kindle is one of the greatest inventions since the printing press. You can have countless books on your kindle account, download them onto your device and read. I've read hundreds of books on my Kindle throughout the decade or so I've owned it.

There is a free daily book website to locate free kindle books. I search every few days. I got Steve Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt for free, many Edgar Rice Burroughs books for free.

http://www.dailyfreebooks.com/

Yep, that is why I have books all over the floor in my den (my bookcase is way overfull).

In the evening I like to relax, holding a good book in my hands.  Books are lighter than even my laptop.  And small tablets show so few words at a time that I am forever changing pages.

 

Rob Gronovius

Amazon's Kindle is one of the greatest inventions since the printing press. You can have countless books on your kindle account, download them onto your device and read. I've read hundreds of books on my Kindle throughout the decade or so I've owned it.

And you don't own any of those books and Amazon can take them off your account any time they wish for any reason. Digital copies are nice for convience but you should remember you own nothing. It's a very big problem with all these digital services. If you don't have multiple back ups on devices not connected to the internet then you could lose it all instantly. Apple took away everyone's music yesterday and people simply had no way to access music they had paid for because Apple decided against it for a day. I'm an old tech nerd and one of my biggest concerns is how reliant people are on streaming and digital devices that outside forces have control of. In a true case of irony Amazon once removed everyone's copy of 1984 from all internet enabled devices (https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-kindle-5317703). Never know what thing it might happen to next and if it will return or not.

For magazine reading I use a samsung tab tablet. Screen is almost A4 size so it works well for it. I need a new e-reader and might pick up a kobo. Markets almost dried up because of tablets, the same way mp3 players has. Most people buy a tablet and read books on it rather than a dedicated device. E readers are usually easier on the eye and don't cause as much eye strain for long reading sessions for me.

I like my books in my hand - call it old school or whatever.  I like to know how close I am to the end, I like to turn the page, I like to dogear a page.  And I'm a technologist by trade, but just can't get past digital books.  Great idea for schools etc, just not for me.  

And Apple did something pretty f'ed up recently.  You can't play iTunes on Sonos anymore.  I dumped Apple a few years back and went to Android for a few reasons.  My wife is livid because she has an extensive music library on iTunes that she can't play on Sonos any longer so she's forced to listen to my music....lol... But what a huge 'Richard' move by Apple.  

keavdog

I like my books in my hand - call it old school or whatever.  I like to know how close I am to the end, I like to turn the page, I like to dogear a page.  And I'm a technologist by trade, but just can't get past digital books.  Great idea for schools etc, just not for me.  

I do prefer an actual book in hand, but often a Kindle version is $1.99 whereas the actual book is $9.99. I was able to buy the entire Game of Thrones series for less than what an individual book cost.

Also, once I've read it, I normally delete it from the device. If I am traveling, I can access the book from my phone and continue reading where I left off.

And I download a lot of free books and public domain books as well. If I start reading it and it doesn't appeal to me, I just stop reading it. No loss of money. There are plenty of really good "amateur" authors who self-publish Kindle books that you wouldn't be able to ever read their stuff anyway else.

I recently finished the entire John Carter of Mars series, all six books while I was working a fairly simple job when my building shut down in May.

I also downloaded a sample of a Rick Atkinson's Vietnam book before committing to buy it.

Bottom line, the versitility of the Kindle is amazing. Right now, the entire Starlog Magazine is available if you have Kindle unlimited. Magazines from the 70s, 80s and 90s. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=starlog+magazine&i=digital-text&crid=2TZFQCFT8HCHU&sprefix=starlog+%2Cdigital-text%2C257&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_8

Yes Kindles are nice. But they can never truly and completely replace the book.

stikpusher

Yes Kindles are nice. But they can never truly and completely replace the book.

 

I wholeheartedly agree. When the Army went from a box of books to a box of CD ROMs for their correspondence courses, it was a nightmare.

If I had multiple field manuals and coursework, I used to be able to have multiple books laid out in front of me stacked to the pages I need. With CD ROMs, I had to minimize/maximize the screen. It was a pain in the butt.

Then the course work itself was much like a video game. Once you load that "game" onto the computer, you have to dedicate that computer to doing the work. This was before everyone had a laptop.

So if you started on one computer, you had to only work on it on that computer. Much like a video game, you start it on one computer and advance levels. You can't reinstall it on another computer and get to the level you left without going through the ones from the beginning.

So as you work towards module 3, you can't get to module 4 until you do 1-3 again if you try to install it on another computer.

Yeah, books are much better for this. But the versatility of having an almost unlimited library on a Kindle (just add wifi to access) is nice. No need to hit the bookstore if you want to read something.

Should of mentioned this in my post and I forgot. It's software that lets you back up books on your e-readers and manage what you have on it. Really good software that can convert formats automatically and keep things tidy. Always use it when I'm dealing with ebooks https://calibre-ebook.com/