[Prestidigitweeze]

85% of the books I want to read aren't available yet as e-books. That's the main thing.

Of those books, about 50% aren't easily adapted to the epub format (bilingual editions, intricate layouts, macrostructures dependent on page flipping, extensive footnotes, etc.). That's incredibly sad. I worry about the survival of elaborately designed books.

Even so, I read ebooks predominantly at this point and strive to replace as many of my physical books as I can with electronic editions.

Here's why:

Space. I've lived in houses so cluttered with books that getting to the front door was like crawling through a crowd of teetering fragile pagodas. I can't ever do that again. It just isn't healthy.

So, yes, I prefer physical books in terms of the variety of formats. But their physicality is a tremendous burden and, what's more, ebooks are as slender and hypoallergenic as the e-reader one chooses and strives to keep clean.