Charlie Brooker on why he's an e-book convert.

[dadioflex]

Edit.

[LDBoblo]

But the single biggest advantage to the ebook is this: no one can see what you're reading.

I have a folded piece of paper that works wonders as a book cover. Some places even sell plain cloth (silk, cotton, etc.) or stretchy book covers, if you want to be pretentious about your secrecy.

On the other hand, an ebook reader shows everyone around you how much of a prick you probably are. That will change in the near future I guess though, as the author mentioned.

[Bremen Cole]

Funny stuff, and he's right on all fronts. As one who's been reading on electronic devices for nearly 10 years I am used to the odd looks while reading in a waiting room.

The fact that what I am reading is hidden from others never even occurs to me. To me anyone that would fret over what a stranger is reading really needs to expand their horizons a bit. Unless it's out and out porn (photos on view for all) , or a terrorist how to manual, I really don't care....

[neilmarr]

Reading the comments prompts me to wonder yet again why it is that ardent treebook readers, who you would think had good vocabularies and vital imaginations, can think only in cliche. The Nay-sayerati bore me to tears. Neil

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Reading the comments prompts me to wonder yet again why it is that ardent treebook readers, who you would think had good vocabularies and vital imaginations, can think only in cliche. The Nay-sayerati bore me to tears. Neil

Any examples to share?

Most of what I see is just uninformed avoidance. Not many have experience enough to reject ebooks on real complaints.

It's unfortunate, sure, but not really at all worse than the e-ink cult.

[neilmarr]

***Any examples to share?***

The usual tired old nit-picks, LD: curling up with a good book, turning the pages by hand, the smell of paper and ink, eye-strain, what if someone steals my reader, you can't read an ebook in the bath ... and so on and so on ... ad bloody nauseam. Neil

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

***Any examples to share?***

The usual tired old nit-picks, LD: curling up with a good book, turning the pages by hand, the smell of paper and ink, eye-strain, what if someone steals my reader, you can't read an ebook in the bath ... and so on and so on ... ad bloody nauseam. Neil

Ahhh...I only looked at the first 50 comments at first, and didn't see more of the emotional reactions. Those are still generally just ignorant hesitation, but would easily be snuffed out with sufficent experience.

There's not enough good anti-ebook sentiment based on experience. Of course, even the most negative (but not paranoid) arguments about ebooks are tempered by the reality that they do in fact have some advantages.

My hope is that once we have capable hardware, more competent reading software will follow. One thing the iPad has me excited about is that development is going to skyrocket for a little while, and some of that will inevitably be related to reading, and some may take advantage of the hardware speed and capability much more practically than page-turning animations. Then again, maybe not.

[camino real]

I just don't see the battle between ebooks and pbooks. Both can co-exist peacefully. They do in my house. Why people have to get defensive over one format or another puzzles me.

[Kanlee]

Originally Posted by camino real

I just don't see the battle between ebooks and pbooks. Both can co-exist peacefully. They do in my house. Why people have to get defensive over one format or another puzzles me.

As Smokey R. said I second that emotion!

[CyberSmoke53]

Originally Posted by camino real

I just don't see the battle between ebooks and pbooks. Both can co-exist peacefully. They do in my house. Why people have to get defensive over one format or another puzzles me.

I agree with this statement too. In fact a lot of my favorite eBooks have a paper Keeper book version. It is a lot more convenient to make a whole lot of books mobile in an electronic reader. A big plus, I can easily find my favorite titles! My pbooks tend to be a more disorganized so it takes longer to find them.

[LDBoblo]

Perhaps if in-demand ebooks were a better value, and ebook readers were either much more capable or far far cheaper (well under $50usd, perhaps closer to $20), I could see people being more willing to justify shifting away from their previous habits, or simply adding on a new option/habit to their current ones.

The cost of entry is rather high though, unless the reader lucks out and happens to enjoy the corpus of materials that are cheap or free. It's quite a step, and many are reluctant to take it, unless it can be justified by eliminating or at least largely replacing paper book purchases. Defensiveness about it is usually a response to the impression left by pro-ebook zealotry wherein bloggers or others proclaim things like "paper is dead" (often, perhaps ironically, in order to justify their own decision to go digital).

It's just a knee-jerk reaction, that's all. It's generally irrational and poorly thought out, which is why they tend to emphasize the emotional/sensual aspect, rather than the logical.

I too have both ebooks and paper books. I prefer paper books, but I don't have space for many of them. Luckily, I decided that I'm willing to waste some money on a redundant paper copy of it if I enjoy it as an ebook. Not many are in my position though, and don't have much of a reason to bother with ebooks in the first place. I know that if shelf space and availability were not problems for me, I would never have bought an ebook reader device. Of course, I wouldn't be romancing about reading in a tub or sniffing ink, glue, and paper and holding that above the digital "experience".

[mr ploppy]

I'm no paper sniffer either, but I would rather have a "real" book, mainly because they have resale value in the future. Where ebooks come into their own is with rare/out of print books that would be either hard or expensive to read any other way. It's just a shame the authors and publishers haven't twigged this yet and made all their back catalogues available in this way.