Kindle, Kobo, E-Reader?

I would love a Kindle. While I will never give up hard copy books, there's an easy way to the e-reader when you want to tote around a library.

However...I would hack it.
Because the thing about the e-books you buy is that you're not actually buying something that you get to own, like a physical book. E-books are licenses and that means, if Amazon thinks you've been a bad boy, it can revoke the e-books you bought.

 

When I watched star trek next generation I thought it would be the coolest if such stuff was available for us but now that it is I am kinda suprised everyone else wants one more than I do I guess I just don't have the money and if I had it I'd spend it on something else sooner... I mostly went to the library for the books I wanted to read but not buy.

 

Yes! I love my Kindle. And I have the app on both my iPhone and iPad. In addition the other readers, like Google Reader, and iBooks are so terrific. Great for writing notes and seeing all of my highlights in one place (as a grad student this is so helpful).

Recently I picked up an LED light that works wonders for late night reading and solved the problem of no back light on the device. It's surprisingly easy to read with.

 

The only annoying thing with the kindle apps is you have to buy books on the kindle itself. I think. And the kindle itself is slow and buggy while searching. Also if I'm not getting the hardcovers then there's no reason why books should still be $20+.

 

Kobo is much better than Kindle for that reason. You aren't restricted to just one place to buy books. Totally agree about the price of some ebooks though!

 

I've got my kindle - which is great when traveling - but I still love a real book also. I basically use my kindle for the books I know I want forever, am slowly building my e library. But - I still buy a lot of books at the used book store and the vintage shop. Basically - My kindle is home to the classics and most loved. I like reading so much I'll take it anyway I can get it.
Most recent additions to my Kindle - Old Demon Alcohol by Gene Logsdon, and A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Also added Huck Finn and the Tolkien 4 recently.
Most recent additions to my paper library - Mycelium Running

 

Thanks so much for that link posted FlowerMama.


It led me to 3 other sites and I had to stop downloading. Got 10 classics for free for the kindle before I made myself stop.

Books I got;
- 3 Musketeers
- Huck Finn
- Arabian Nights
- Tales of India (Kipling)
- Edgar Allen Poe complete works vol 1
- Illiad
- Odyssey
- First 2 from the Mars series (Burroughs)
- Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes Mystery)

So Stoked :2thumbsup:

Anyhoo - the other sites I found;

http://www.gutenberg.org/

http://manybooks.net/

http://www.feedbooks.com/


Keep Readin Folks -

 

You are very welcome my friend! Happy you found so many!

 

I have a kobo app on my blackberry playbook, and I have downloaded a lot of free books, like Dickens, since they are in the public domain. I haven't bought any books yet, but my mom loves her kobo, she's had it for a couple years.

 

Love it!

:2thumbsup:

 

I got the Kindle Fire HD 9".

Bought it like a week before the new HDX came out.... oh well, you can never stay on top of this shit anyways.

I love my Kindle though. Great battery life, lasts a good 10-12 hours and its perfect for reading (I don't hardly use it for anything else- I might occasionally check Twitter on there but thats about it). I love the fact that the books are DRM free, if ya catch my drift

I am a little hesitant to purchase a ton of books in Kindle format though. I have a HUGE library at my apartment with tons of books (mostly non-fiction, which is what I'm into) and I've often thought about donating these books to someone or some organization or maybe a library when I'm gone, just to spread the knowledge and keep all this information alive...

However I worry about long term viability of e-readers like the Kindle... I mean, in 50 years from now, is Amazon still gonna be here providing this service (and supporting Kindle devices)? How about all that content I purchased? Will the .mobi format even still be viable? At the rate technology progresses and evolves these days, I highly doubt it.

 

I'm not a fan at all.

 

I don't have a kindle,as I like hard copy formats.( same for music.) I was just wondering though,are they able to display pictures yet? I think this would be essential if they are ever going to replace physical books,especially for non-fiction and textbooks etc.

 

^ Yeah, they've had this for several years now.

The Kindle Fire HD is a full-featured tablet. You can look at images, take pictures, browse the web, download stuff, use apps, etc.

 

Okay.I didn't know that.I guess it's pretty cool machine then.I'm instinctively against them,but it will probably manage to insinuate itself into my life before too long.Having studied English literature,I have a love for books,but hopefully both forms can co-exist,at least for the forseable future.

 

I totally hear you man.

I have a massive library of physical books, some are rare and hard to find, almost all of them pretty esoteric stuff... I've collected books my whole adult life, and bought several huge bookshelves to house them all. However, I never have enough space, I've got boxes of books in the closet, boxes in the attic, boxes in my bedroom, etc. Just do not have the space in my house to hold them all.... One day I hope to have enough money to install an actual mini-library in my house and have everything organized cleanly and easy to access all my titles.

I resisted the e-readers for the exact same reasons as you for years and years. I thought; there's just no way I could ever get used to reading on a tablet, I'm the kind of guy who loves a physically bound book, flipping through the pages, holding it, hell I even love the smell of books! But I figured I'd give it a shot, since I got the kindle for like $180 on Amazon on sale, which wasn't bad at all.

I'm now a convert; I realize those things which I thought I could never get over (having a physical book, turning the pages, etc) were ultimately pretty superficial and I've discovered that aesthetic experience really wasnt what I truly loved about books and reading; it was the content which truly satisfies and holds a special spot in my heart.

Like I said though, I'm reluctant to purchase too many books on Kindle because I don't want to invest a shitload of money into these purchases, only to have the Kindle line discontinued 20 years down the road and the digital book format goes extinct and I lose everything I've paid for and will not have a physical copy of it to hand down to my kids, or donate to some organization when I'm gone... However on the flip side of this, I like how far fewer resources go into creating an ebook, as opposed to the large amount of resources which go into printing and distributing physical copies of books.

If you ever feel up to it, my advice would be to try a relatively cheap ereader like the Kindle... you don't need the $500 iPad or any of that shit, and I would stick with something which is made for reading, as opposed to being a tablet first and foremost with a secondary e-reader function.

 

I also have probably getting on for a thousand books, a lot of which are in boxes.I don't really want to collect a lot more,like a dragon perhaps,as you can't take them with you when you go,they would probably just be a burden for whoever has to sort out my affairs.I also have enough reference books,science and philosophy books to last me a lifetime,stuff I skipped or didn't fully understand first time round.Also to be honest I don't read as much as I used to.I usually have a book or two on the go,but I am not the avid speed-reader I used to be.Therefore I think a simple kindle would be a good idea for me,although I am not desperate for one.We shall see.

 

me too I am not yet really thinking about getting an e-reader or any kind of tablet, but I am not fundamentally opposed to it anymore. chadcr01 you made a good point about the long-term availability of the data.... I really wonder if the format of the e-reader itself will survive, considering the rapid growth of the tablet market. 8http://www.statista.com/statistics/200248/forecast-of-tablet-pc-sales-in-the-united-states-from-2010-to-2015/) The Kindle Fire HD probably shows the direction e-readers will take (inevitably?): making space for multi-purpose tablets.

 

There's no need to worry about file types, because even if your reader disappears from the market, computers can read it and convert into other file types.

I read on my Android phone and there are apps capable of reading mobi type files.

I seldom touch a paper book these days, but have hundreds of books in my phone. It's so much easier to carry around. I never run out of books when on vacation, for instance, and have always literally hundreds of books on my person.

These days I'm reading 2, or 3 books per week. On paper, that's a lot of books. On a memory card, it's nothing.

The old paper format will always be in our hearts, but it is inconvenient for some. I've given most of my paper books away.