Went to a Bookstore Today

[wawasteele]

I went to a used bookstore with my mother a few months ago. She is 90 and will only read paper.

I thought I would love it there. I used to love bookstores and libraries. It was such a great feeling to be surrounded by books. I didn't have that feeling at all. I was shocked. I finally decided that since I no longer have any desire to read paper books, I no longer had the desire to be surrounded by books.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rollei

I still go to bookstores to see what they have on shelf. The bookstores would stock books people would want to read.

If you can find them, hidden behind the coffee and toys...

[Anthem]

I still find good uses for paper books. Paper is still probably the best reading experience when it comes to pure quality of the text on the page. E-ink has gotten much better, but it STILL has a good ways to go.

LCD is superb for reading, but the backlights have a tendency to tire my eyes quickly, especially since I have an astigmatism.

But ebooks have so many wonderful things that they can do that I read about 95% e-book. Also, for a book like Nos4a2 by Joe Hill, there are illustrations and cool end papers that work best in a printed form (LCD second, and e-ink barely in third just because there is no other third option).

And fancy printed books can be displayed on shelves, which is something I still like doing. Even though most of my books are licensed ebooks now.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by wawasteele

I finally decided that since I no longer have any desire to read paper books, I no longer had the desire to be surrounded by books.

I still like to go to our local 50% Off Bookstores. (A small, but getting bigger, chain of used bookstores, originating in the DFW area.)

[rollei]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

If you can find them, hidden behind the coffee and toys...

Not the new release though, there are usually 4-5 copies on the shelf but if all 5 disappeared behind the coffee, that's another thing

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rollei

Not the new release though, there are usually 4-5 copies on the shelf but if all 5 disappeared behind the coffee, that's another thing

A popular new release that would appear on the front shelves would also be on my radar from a least eight other ways. If I had any interest in it, it would already be wishlisted (on Amazon) for months.

The one type of book I need no help discovering is the one they don't hide.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Anthem

I still find good uses for paper books. Paper is still probably the best reading experience when it comes to pure quality of the text on the page. E-ink has gotten much better, but it STILL has a good ways to go.

LCD is superb for reading, but the backlights have a tendency to tire my eyes quickly, especially since I have an astigmatism.

But ebooks have so many wonderful things that they can do that I read about 95% e-book. Also, for a book like Nos4a2 by Joe Hill, there are illustrations and cool end papers that work best in a printed form (LCD second, and e-ink barely in third just because there is no other third option).

And fancy printed books can be displayed on shelves, which is something I still like doing. Even though most of my books are licensed ebooks now.

Paper books are the only kind I can read on Shabbos --electronic devices are prohibited.

[TuxGirl]

I like looking at the used bookstores that have lots of really old books. I don't care about the ones that someone bought a month ago and then got rid of... Unfortunately, with the exception of thrift stores, I usually can't afford to buy any of the really old books in paper. I will usually end up searching for a good e-version if possible, bonus points if it to includes some original artwork.

We do buy paper books for our almost 5 year old. I've been slowly collecting a lot of chapter books for her and her little brother, both in paper and eBook.

[leaston]

After watching the movie The Battle of Britain the other evening with my 11yr old son, he was asking questions of the aircraft used on both sides. I was able to go straight to a shelf of reference books and pick out one encyclopedia of aircraft used during WWII and another (the title escapes me now) of all the facts and figures (losses, equipment lists, divisions etc.) of WWII for all countries. I flicked back and forth through the books, finding info he was interested in.

Could I do that with any kind electronic device? Nope. Even a pdf on my laptop would have taken far longer and you just cannot look through books in the same way electronically.

I'll never stop buying real books, fiction and non-fiction for the reasons given here and a number of others. Ebooks are a poor substitute imo.

[murg]

Originally Posted by leaston

Could I do that with any kind electronic device? Nope.

Wikipedia comes close. I got lost for hours recently in Peenemunde ...

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by murg

Wikipedia comes close. I got lost for hours recently in Peenemunde ...

Gotta second that - Wikipedia is a great source; and more up-to-date than print.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Gotta second that - Wikipedia is a great source; and more up-to-date than print.

You also have to be more careful with Wikipedia at times too. It's harder to be sure that everything is accurate depending on topic and poster from what I've heard. But it is good if you want to look up something on the fly I agree.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by crich70

You also have to be more careful with Wikipedia at times too. It's harder to be sure that everything is accurate depending on topic and poster from what I've heard. But it is good if you want to look up something on the fly I agree.

Best way to tell is to browse the footnotes.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by leaston

After watching the movie The Battle of Britain the other evening with my 11yr old son, he was asking questions of the aircraft used on both sides. I was able to go straight to a shelf of reference books and pick out one encyclopedia of aircraft used during WWII and another (the title escapes me now) of all the facts and figures (losses, equipment lists, divisions etc.) of WWII for all countries. I flicked back and forth through the books, finding info he was interested in.

Could I do that with any kind electronic device? Nope. Even a pdf on my laptop would have taken far longer and you just cannot look through books in the same way electronically.

And if you didn't happen to have those books, then you'd have just had to leave your son wondering?

I don't have any books about aircraft in WW2, and I'm at work right now, so it wouldn't really help if I did, but thanks to the magic of my electronic devices I could probably find out what I wanted to know fairly quickly without leaving my seat.

(I've always felt the Hurricane was underappreciated.)

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by leaston

Could I do that with any kind electronic device? Nope. Even a pdf on my laptop would have taken far longer and you just cannot look through books in the same way electronically..

I don't think anyone would argue that there's situations (especially with regard to reference/research) that favor physical books. If you have a memory/mental image of how far into a book something occurs--and at what area of the printed page it falls on--"thumbing" is almost certain to get you there quicker and easier. Also, the experience of having numerous books open all around you when researching is hard to replicate with ebooks (unless you have access to many devices--and even then, it probably wouldn't be the same).

But, conversely, there's also no use arguing that those advantages negate any of the advantages ebooks have over printed books. What if you and your son had watched The Battle of Britain away from home? Would it be better to download/buy/search ebooks on your portable device/tablet and perhaps satisfy/pique his curiosity? Or would it be better to tell him he'll have to wait until you get back home?

And if you're trying to find a passage in an author's body of work--one you have no clue which particular book it might be in: will you find it quicker by grabbing books off a shelf or by doing a text search across all the books on your reading device?

There's no question that each has its own advantages/disadvantages--research/reference or otherwise.