A friend of mine and I were talking this morning about Sony's E-Reader and Amazon's Kindle. I was surprised that he wanted one. His loft style apartment is full of bookshelves, most of them completely full of books. He LOVES books. How could he want a reader?

See, I love reading but for me, it goes beyond the text. I love the smell of books. I like the sound of pages turning. I find the dog-ear folds charming.

I don't know why I'm having such a weird time with this.

Any other paper sentimentalists out there?

Do you like the taste of books too?

yeah all the way. i love books. i like to own them and i want them to be new when i read them. i don't like the library for that reason. returning and touching f*cking nasty old books. i'm a sentimentalist about all paper stuff though from books to newspapers to magazines. i want tangible stuff to read. i spend so much time looking at a screen the thought of having to look at one to read a book for enjoyment makes me feel sick nearly.

^lol. i love checking out library books, but a lot of people hate it because they feel like they're not clean and stuff.

i like the feel of holding books and turning pages too. i also like bookmarking my pages with random things.

i sat next to someone who had an e-book reader thing and i dunno, i guess it's cool, but my eyes would get too tired from looking at a screen. maybe those are more portable and whatnot, but i would feel like my vision would be going faster if i spent a lot of time looking at those things.

I get that same sickly feeling when thinking about giving up paper. To this day, I prefer news on print over reading news online.

In the long haul, staring at a screen for just about everything (computers, cell phones, e-readers, etc) can't be good for your eyes. It also seems so cold. Part of the allure of reading is the physical character of the book itself. At least for me it is.

edit: haha Teesa. I was typing about eyes as you were, I guess. :)

i think i read somewhere that they actually don't have that much research to back up that looking at a screen causes your eyesight to deteriorate. but i was like wtf and didn't believe it. i'll look for that later.


and i agree with you rebecca. news in print > online news. i love reading the newspaper. the best thing about the school year probably the is free new york times every morning before class.

being a news editorial journalism major, i should be advocating for print everything, but i love online news so much better. i check a bunch of news sites a day and i love the interactiveness of everything.

I read tech related online articles, online comics and a few other things through RSS Feeds. I really like Google Reader.

That being said, I like to read the news news on print.

I think it's inevitable that e-book readers will eventually replace paper books; it might not happen for a couple of generations (I do think it'll be a slow process), but it will happen. But I prefer "real" hardcopy books over e-books, for several reasons:

1. Amazon's Kindle has already had numerous DRM (digital rights management issues). Some books can only be read on a certain number of readers, some can only be downloaded a few times (even if you legitimately purchased them), Amazon has deleted books that they suspect have been pirated, and with DRM, the "right" to read a book you bought can be revoked at any time. At least when I buy a paper book, the seller can't come to my apartment and take it back from me. Plus you can't (easily) share e-books. I often swap books with people, and would miss being able to let someone borrow my books, or borrow someone else's books.
2. I like feeling like I'm turning pages, too. I like paper. I like being able to write notes in the margins. I like the look of a well-worn book. I like the look of hardcopy books on my bookshelf. I like piling books up by my desk because they don't fit anywhere else. I even like boxing them up and carry around a box of books weighing 50+ pounds. E-book readers rob me of those little joys.
3. Real books don't need to be recharged; their batteries don't go dead unexpectedly. (Downside: I can't read "real" books during a power outage once the sun goes down.)
4. If I'm walking somewhere with a book in my bag, and I get caught in a downpour, it doesn't matter if the book gets a little wet. (This happens a lot, since I don't own a car, and unexpected rainstorms are common in Troy, NY.)
5. Sometimes it's nice to get away from electronic devices.

Well, still. There's bibliophiles around the world... people who love the physical copy of a book in their hands, the smell of books (am I the only one who flips through a book and smells the pages? No!). I love books, I surround myself in books! Hell, I have two memberships to two different libraries (because I'm a loser, who does that seriously?) and having an emptiness in my room because of lack of books is just upsetting. Though E-Book Readers are pretty cool, especially when I'm on a long car trip and I finished my two lone books I brought with me, I'd have more to read.

tldr.

I have seen the kindle. I thought it was a paper replacement for the product. It looks like paper! I love it! and i want one!

I love the feeling of a new book, although many of them I really dont end up reading, I just love purchasing a new book with the nicely cut pages.
I have an obession with clean books, I hate it when the corners start to give into the pressure of my unholy backpack. That being said, I guess Im a sentimentalist.

we got my grandfather a kindle for his birthday and if you look at the screen, it's exactly like looking at paper and not like looking at a "screen" at all. it's pretty amazing, tbh.

anyways, unlike ... everyone else, i have absolutely no sentimental attachment to books. i mean, i like them, don't get me wrong, but if i had a kindle, i'd probably end up using it all the time. as it is, i've been torrenting books i want to read for free and don't mind reading them off my computer at all.

1) books are heavy.
2) books are more expensive.
3) books are bulky.

That's how I feel. If I'm reading a book, I'm most likely doing it because I don't want to be on the computer.

And books are just...nice. They smell good and make you look smart if you have a huge bookshelf full of them.

Real books. I can't help it, there's something about reading a book that doesn't translate to the screen.

See, I had a different impression and didn't feel like it really looked like a book. It's nice to read a different perspective though.

I don't mind either mode actually. I prefer buying or borrowing books if I can get a copy and if they're cheap. I like reading books when taking public transit so I don't have to play eye-tag with the person sitting across from me. After I found out about the Stanza app, I read books on my iPod Touch. There were so many classics that I had missed out on so I downloaded them free e-book websites and Project Gutenberg. I read a couple of Jane Austen novels on them (and boy, are they long) and really enjoyed it. You can change the colors and font size to make it easier to read. I find that I get through the book faster than if I'm reading it on the computer or in my hand.