Quote:
Originally Posted by uebyn
Why am I still saying this NOW? Precisely because there're so many converts now, I'm wondering: why did you switch to ebooks? Have you forgotten the pleasure of books browsing, or is the e-book experience comparable to that of the old-school experience? Or has convenience displaced experience?
|
I loved book-browsing; however, it rarely resulted in me getting books--I couldn't afford them. I also couldn't carry several days' reading around in my purse; at 2 hours for a 50,000-word novel, I can and do finish one new book on the bus to my doctor, and want something else to read on the way back.
I also read a lot of fanfiction, which doesn't have a printed form. (Fanfic exploded when it hit the internet; the zine days didn't have 250,000-word stories. Nobody could afford to print them.)
I never could afford new books to keep up with my reading; I relied a lot on friends' recs and borrowed books and yard sales. Now, I read a lot of freebies and self-published things with interesting-sounding blurbs.
I'm entirely willing to forgo the "pleasure of book-browsing" for the pleasure of endless things to read, especially since they come in a single lightweight package that changes fonts to match the light level or my eyes' tiredness.