Biggest satisfaction/happiness vs. biggest disappointment/frustration

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Some of us SciFi readers hide what we read not through embarrassment, but because of people saying "oh you're reading science fiction. You're one of THOSE people. I can't see how anyone can get into SciFi".

Thankfully, I've never really encountered any of those. I'm lucky enough to have gone to a school full of geeks in high school. In college, I was in computer engineering and the "SciFi geeks" who tended to also have high grades in math and science courses were revered, not ridiculed.

If I had encountered those people, though, I'd probably just ignore them. I'm usually left alone by people who think I'm weird, anyhow.

Originally Posted by Solicitous

The ease of getting ebooks, one tends to very easily 'hoard' a great collection of ebooks that realistically one will never read. I see people posting about having 3000 ebooks in their collection (and wanting to put them all on their ereader). The 100 books a year challenge is a big one, so these people would spend the next 30 years just to read what they have, not counting what they add to their list.

I've actually got more than 2,000 titles (mostly fanfics) on my ereader (taking up just a little over 200MB of space). I never realized I actually read that much in a 2-year span. Most of those titles, I've finished reading except for the crappy ones that I've abandoned. 3000 may seem daunting but if you actually enjoy reading what you have, they tend to go by pretty quickly. Now if you were forcing yourself to read titles that you don't really like, finishing even 10 books is difficult.

[FatDog]

Some of us SciFi readers hide what we read not through embarrassment, but because of people saying "oh you're reading science fiction. You're one of THOSE people.

I have 3 daughters and trying to find positive role-models was a struggle. When "Voyger" and "DS9" were on television they were in High School and I got them watching the shows for the strong female characters. One day I asked daughter2of3 if any of her friends teased her for watching these shows. She thought for a moment and said: "Everyone I know watches Star Trek. But only some of them admit it."

PRO:

• No more crappy Book Club books. No more drooling over collectible acid-free editions.
  
• No more worrying about my paper-books deteriorating on the shelf or in a box. Amazon maintains my Kindle books and I can burn an occasional DVD with my epubs.
  
• Addiction. It is easier to horde ebooks and not be visible.

The addiction comment needs some background:

My family would tease me because I usually had a few DVD/BluRay disks still in shrink wrap or a un-read book or un-opened video game on the shelf.

"These are my rainy-day books/games/movies." I would explain. "This way - I always have something fun to do if I run out of other things."

Someone once told me that real alcoholics always have a bottle with some booze in it that they never drink. If they did - then they would be out and that terrifies them. I suspect - I am kind of the same way.

With ebooks - I can have a few dozen titles sitting around awaiting my "rainy day". It will probably never come - and I am OK with that.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

embarassed about scifi!!!???

One day, while carry on a conversation with my wife, I made a comment about the 3 Laws of Robotics. The cool thing is that she knew what they were being a scifi an fantasy lover herself.

And I realized that she was the first woman I had ever had a serious relationship with who would have know that.

Gotta be love! Geek love!

[jgaiser]

Re: Embarassed about sf...

SF Signal: Don't Be a Literary Snob, Try Sci Fi

[maianhvk]

my kindle? easy.

satisfaction: the screen.
disappointment: the keyboard.

[hermes]

maianhvk -
As I will be in Vietnam in a few months I am very curious to know how you find the wifi functionality there. HAve street vebdors started selling ebooks as they were CDs and DVDs as in 2001 - know what I mean? Also the availability of ebooks and ereaders there. I was very impressed by the independent Apple store in HCMC's Pham Ngu Lao. But if VN is like China, electronics are very much close to the price in USA - usually more expensive even!

[anamardoll]

Good thread.

Pros:
* I LOVE having my library at hand at literally all times. It's a blessing.
* Getting to discover cool indie authors. I remember when "indie" meant "$18.00 for a paperback because self-publishing is expensive!" Now I can read great authors and support them easily. I love it!
* Being able to reduce the physical library. Every time I replace a pBook with its eBook, I smile.

Cons:
* I once mucked up a 32 GB sd card when transferring books to it. That hurt -- those suckers aren't cheap.
* None of my readers is perfect for EVERY possible use. I wish I could order a custom device... And in the meantime I have to fight the urge to Collect Em All.
* Sometimes I'm short with people who ask me about my eReader in public. It's not that I don't want to be informative, but I bought it to read on not to talk about it. I think that makes me a bad person.

[astra]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

* Sometimes I'm short with people who ask me about my eReader in public. It's not that I don't want to be informative, but I bought it to read on not to talk about it. I think that makes me a bad person.

No. It does not.
It is a general courtesy not to interrupt people who are reading.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by astra

No. It does not.
It is a general courtesy not to interrupt people who are reading.

LOL, thank you, but I also get that a lot of people see a possible learning experience, and I hate to deny it to them. I kind of wish I had TWO sets of eReaders so that I could continue to read on one and hand them the other to tinker with in peace.

[Fallingwater]

Positive: a positively huge amount of free reading material available (legally and not), and all carryable in your pocket to be perused at will.
Negative: can't really read comics. The readers are capable, but unless you have a 10" model the process is just too time-consuming.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

LOL, thank you, but I also get that a lot of people see a possible learning experience, and I hate to deny it to them. I kind of wish I had TWO sets of eReaders so that I could continue to read on one and hand them the other to tinker with in peace.

What kind of reader parent would that make you???? They'd dabble with your reader child unobserved all they like???

Nah, let them get their own reader to destroy!

[Jeff Rivera]

The positive would have to be the instant gratification aspect - being able to grab books as soon as they come out from the comfort of home.

The negative would be actually missing the physical books. Now the question becomes what do I do with all the paperbacks and hardcovers I've amassed over the years.

[DrLaurenceBrown]

The selection of books is definitely a positive. Getting classics for free and hundreds of others for just change is great. I also feel like I'm finding more new authors that I normally wouldn't have picked up in a bookstore.

[speakingtohe]

Positive:
I always have books to read. I work in an isolated community with a very small library for 6 months every year. I can download library books from my home library in seconds. Same with purchases and freebies.

Negative: Too many books too little time.
I tend to read ebooks from start to finish more often than paper books. Paper books I would switch back and forth more often. Not sure why.

When my really want to read list gets too long I can become anxious in a bizarre way. I am afraid I will forget to read or inadvertantly skip some of them.

I make lists of course but who wants to get up and look at a list at 1 AM.

Oh well, one cannot read absolutely everything, dammit.

Helen

[patrickt]

I live in Mexico and for the first time in 13 years I can read what I want instead of what I can find.

Poorly edited books. I just finished one where, for some reason, "I'll" came out as "FU". That should have been caught and correcting every occurence would have been a snap.