Quote:
Originally Posted by garygibsonsf
In fact, the more I browse the net looking at ebook sites, the more I realise that was my mistake during all my time browsing for information about the readers themselves; I didn't take a look to see what was actually available for purchase. There's a remarkable lack of content outside of public domain and recent bestsellers. I've searched for several of my favourite authors (I mostly read sf) and find myself horrendously disappointed by the results. Authors like Kage Baker and Lucius Shepard, outside of a few short stories here and there, are simply absent. If you want to read Douglas Adams and Star Trek novels (certainly not me) your choice appears ample, but if you want to delve into anything else - and I speak as someone with walls lined with paper books - the ereaders all of a sudden look like far less of a good idea. I find this particularly depressing.
Mind you, suddenly the Kindle for all its faults is suddenly beginning to look better, given that it's sold by what I believe is the biggest bookseller on the planet in a position to turn the majority of what it sells into ebooks. Except, of course, the Kindle is rarer than gold dust right now.
Oh dear. And it all looked like such a good way to be able to get the books I want while I was in the Far East. Perhaps I should stick to paper for now. Damn.
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I felt the same as you very strongly, now my position is moving towards thinking about the ebook reader as a "partial" solution (others on this forum suggested it to me). I am building up a library of PDF, JPG and TXT files from public domain and websites that say you can use their content (copy and paste text - mostly sites about ancient history). So far I have about 150 (in only 2 days!).
Add in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy and things are looking more promising still.
I hate DRM and will not buy any with it. Fictionwise I have read (from HarryT I think) has some non-drm, add that and it improves more. I will still buy the lastest and best as a paperback but the option of having an ebook reader is looking better than I thought - I will plug on building my library and see what I think.