Books, and feelings about them?

[JohnMitchell 14]

airdvr

Read a lot growing up and in my early adulthood. Now books are relegated to vacations or long plane trips. Got a Kindle a few years ago and love it. So much easier.

My story almost exactly. Soon to be retired, though, so looking to spend long rainy afternoons camped in the library with Vskydiver and a cup of coffee.

[zen_mtn_climber 0]

airdvr

Read a lot growing up and in my early adulthood. Now books are relegated to vacations or long plane trips. Got a Kindle a few years ago and love it. So much easier.

Ditto here . . only downside to my Kindle is it can't handle the cold . . e-ink screen gets funky if it gets too close to freezing. So no Kindle on mountaineering trips or late season backpacking trips

[AggieDave 6]

I'm also an avid reader and my transition to ebooks was nearly 2 years ago, having been a hater before that. The biggest advantage I found first is the ability to buy a new book immediately when I finish another. The second advantage I've found are the multitude of self-published authors who have great stories. White Flag Of The Dead is one that made it to dead-tree edition from e-book only recently that I loved reading.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[lurch 0]

Been an avid reader since early childhood. My mom says she didn't need to teach me to read... I eavesdropped on her teaching my older brother and by the time she got around to me, found I'd taught myself already and was devouring any reading material I could find by age 4.
Used to spend summers as a kid riding my bike back and forth to the library getting as many books as I could carry and chewing through all of them in a couple days, then back for more...
When I'd exhausted the local library of interesting books I discovered the local used bookstore where I could turn in bags of scrounged books and get even MORE books in trade, was making several runs per week... I remember curling up with a 565 page novel when I was 13, then suddenly I'm at the end of the book a couple hours later having read the entire thing in one sitting. I don't speedread, but my default reading rate is like playing a movie in fast forward... the only books that really satisfy and take me more than a couple hours are big chunky thousand-pagers... Atlas Shrugged or The Stand...
To me books are more like head movies. I stop being aware of the world and the book itself and just get the images and story. Its hard to hit "pause" and pull my head out of Bookspace.

The only thing that keeps me from becoming a total book addict that never sees the light of day is a need for physical activity and book supply issues. I can't keep enough of them handy without constant runs to used bookstores... got hundreds in stacks and scattered about my apartment, I've read every one, and it'll soon be time for another used book tradein run because I haven't got anything new around my apartment.
Even worse is, your average small used bookstore, has maybe a few floor-to-ceiling shelves worth of sci-fi, many used bookstores I step in, I've already read the majority of what's on their shelves and uninterested in what remains... I have little use for swords and wizards books, and they're a major shelf-filler everywhere. Sci-fi, I've largely exhausted the entire genre, and I'm totally burned out and turned off by most horror style novels, (Clive Barker, no offense bro but you've cranked out one too many pointless magical-gay-people horror novels, and to a straight male its like, yuck, ok, we get it, you like hot guys, can we move along?)
Steven King still gets my time though because he seldom disappoints and he's got an even more vivid imagination than I do.
I have no use for a Kindle because I'm all set with a personal device which Amazon has more control over than I do and can go in there and delete anything they like over DRM issues...

Like Matt I use my phone, the internet's the best thing to ever happen to a voracious reader, anywhere I've got signal, I've got an infinity of reading material available if I take the time to just look. When all else fails there's Wikipedia... I'll study semiconductor fab tech, cellular biology, medicine, geology, meteorology, zoology, astrophysics...
When traveling by airline I usually have 4 or 5 paperbacks stuffed in my carryon with rig and helmet, its usually enough to get me through a trip. Although the net is effectively infinite source of reads, there's just something much nicer about real books... reading digitally is like using an E-cigarette, barely acceptable substitute.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[Remster 24]

http://swirlgirlversus.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/550639_432936870052198_918053010_n.jpeg?w=560

Remster

[forblueskies 0]

Being a voracious reading since childhood, I still find nothing compares with holding and turning the pages of a real book. The satisfaction of turning the last page. The feel of the pages, the smell.

I was given a Kindle. I read one book on it.

[amstalder 0]

I wasn't keen on making the ereader transition, but did it for traveling a couple years ago. Honestly, I really liked the kindle right away, but I felt equal love for both. And then I had my son. My kindle was a sanity saver in the early days when I was learning to nurse him. There was no way I would've been able to hold a book and turn pages one handed.

[TiaDanger 0]

I love reading, oh boy do I love it. I feel naked and vulnerable without having a book to read.

I LOVE my Kindle Paperwhite. But I also love paper books; I don't discriminate among reading mediums.

I have not had to pay for a book in several years:
1. Amazon Prime lets me have 12 free books a year
2. My city has a large and in charge library system, so if I can't get a ebook from them, its certainly available in paperback.
3. I have all these paperbacks that were sitting on my shelf, and it made me sad that they were read only once and not being enjoyed by others SO....I signed up for an online book club (Paperbackswap.com for those interested) that lets you swap books with other members. Basically for every book you send to someone (media mail for one book is usually $2.60), you get to request a book from another member. This book club has worked like a charm.

And for the record: the appropriate ranking of cool modes of transportation is jet pack, hover board, transporter, Batmobile, and THEN giant ant.
D.S. #8.8

[amstalder 0]

TiaDanger

I love reading, oh boy do I love it. I feel naked and vulnerable without having a book to read.

I LOVE my Kindle Paperwhite. But I also love paper books; I don't discriminate among reading mediums.

I have not had to pay for a book in several years:
1. Amazon Prime lets me have 12 free books a year
2. My city has a large and in charge library system, so if I can't get a ebook from them, its certainly available in paperback.
3. I have all these paperbacks that were sitting on my shelf, and it made me sad that they were read only once and not being enjoyed by others SO....I signed up for an online book club (Paperbackswap.com for those interested) that lets you swap books with other members. Basically for every book you send to someone (media mail for one book is usually $2.60), you get to request a book from another member. This book club has worked like a charm.

Thanks for the info on the book swap! We just pulled tons of books out of storage and we have no idea what to do with them now!! Some will be read again, but certainly not all....

[BikerBabe 0]

You sound like me.

I also read extremely fast, so I go through books at an astonishing rate. I love holding a book in my hands, but I was converted last year, when I did the Camino de Santiago.

When you're walking across Spain with a pack on your back, weight is everything, so I stored 20 books, my Camino guide, and some language dictionaries on my kindle app on my phone (the only electronic thing i took) and it was a lifesaver. There is a lot of down time in the afternoons, and resting my weary feet while reading was a simple pleasure.

Now I love it, and I've donated a lot of my books to charity.

Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!