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Eeeee! Books!

Subject: Eeeee! Books!
by TheFool on 2010/10/13 21:18:29

Eeeee! Books!
The digital age is upon me. I recently went through my books with my girlfriend in attempt to expand both her and my potential reading sources. What I found was a bit shocking. Over half the books I have read in the last year have been in e-book format!

Yes, Kindle for Iphone and Project Gutenberg have invaded my library.

I started to ponder that great question: Is the digital version an improvement from the paperbacks of yore? I can come up with a virtual ton of reasons why they are, a handful as to why they aren't; yet I still find myself yearning for the smell and feel of paper. I wonder if my children or their children will have that same want of paper or if the days of a paperback novel will die out in the stuttering and sputtering way we see the daily newspaper dying.

So here's my list of reasons why an e-book is superior to a paperback.

1. Unbreakable! Sure you can delete a file, but unless Amazon goes out of business I can get the book back at any time.
2. Unlimited shelf space! Ok, its limited by the size of my ipone or kindle hard drive, but since I can redownload at any time I don't have to worry about my attic collapsing from the weight.
3. Last page memory! The days of trying to figure out what page I was on are over. It automatically goes back to the last page I read. You can also jump to specific chapters or manual tabs you have placed in the book. No more dog-eared pages either.
4. Adjustable font! For those of us who can't see the nose on our face you can make the size as big or as small as you need. No need for special glasses or strange novelty devices.
5. Instant availability! Thanks to the wonders of the internet, as long as you have a way to get online you can instantly get (almost) any book you want, any time you want it.
6. Theoretically lower costs: Right now most ebooks are cheaper than their new counterpart (but you can't buy used books). In theory as they become more prevalent you should see this price come down even further as competition heats up. Even still, with no cost of production, the author should be making more $; which should translate to more and better books!

Think that e-books are better? Think paperbacks will always have a place? Why?
Give us your list!

Words from The Fool:
Maybe... just maybe... I still like real books. The feel, the smell, and the LOOK of having them. It looks nice to see a shelf full of memories and they're handy for killing spiders. However, the times are always changing. I believe we are at the very start of the decline of paper books and that several generations from now they'll be a niche product for new authors. Several generations before that they'll be nothing more than antique bobbles and used for researching things prior to the digital age. Still, that won't stop my girlfriend from her love of reading a book so many times the pages fall out. No fooling.