Reflection--What I've loved best about my ereader...

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by bevdeforges

Like others have mentioned, I simply read much more since getting hooked on my Reader. But the other thing is that I pay more attention to book reviews in newspapers and magazines in order to find interesting reading out there.

Never used to be able to do this, as my book buying was limited to my trips back to the US, the rare times I got into Paris to the English bookstores or to making an order from Amazon UK. But now I can put something interesting-looking on my wish list and just wait for the price to come down to an acceptable level.

The one down side is that I've got a number of big, thick books on my TBR list and then I signed up for the 100 book challenge... oh well, I never figured on making 100 books, just wanted to see how close I could get.

I am in a similar situation. MY e-book reader was a life saver, as books in English are sometimes hard to come by here. I found that it did open me up to other genres, though, once I started reading on my reader.

If you have a lot of big, thick books on your TBR list, you might want to count pages instead of the number of books read. I've seen a lot of people with tickers that have a page count challenge, generally, 30,000 or 50,000 pages in 2011.

[Poppaea]

I tend to doze off when reading and now I don't have to search the book for where I ended up anymore.

[SensualPoet]

I tried reading on computers a long time ago. Folks were trading text files of pulp fiction, like The Shadow, back in the days of BBSs, Compuserve, et al. But the experience was never for me. When the original Sony ereader came out, my ears perked up; and when the original Kindle arrived -- since I was already a fan of Amazon -- I was reaching for my wallet. But lack of decent access from Canada, and the high price of readers ($400+) gave me pause. So Kindle officially arrived in Canada in late Nov 2009 in the form of Kindle 2i, I forked over the $259. I had no idea I would love the experience so much.

With Kindle 2i, I was reading stuff I hadn't encountered before, or gotten around to: classics, or at least PD content. I think I had the Kindle for three months before I actually bought anything. By the time the Kobo was released here in May 2010 -- giving me direct access to the public library -- I was completely smitten. And the Kindle 3 just ratchet's the whole experience up a further notch.

I did NOT expect to read nearly as much as I am.
I did NOT expect to read so widely as I am (mainly mysteries but a wide variety of authors).
I did NOT expect to read virtually every night in bed, or make time on holidays to read.
I did NOT expect to find such a friendly, intelligent, passionate set of folks here at MR.
I did NOT expect to babble on about my Kindle at the office ....

As the song puts it, "it's been a fine romance!"

[CWatkinsNash]

• First of all, as others have said, finding MobileRead. I can honestly say this is the longest I've stuck it out at any forum. I love this place.
• Related to that - the reading challenge, which got me finally using Goodreads. I've gotten a lot out of GR, and I don't think I would have bothered had it not been for the challenge group.
• I enjoy reading more, though I didn't realize that was possible until it happened. I've always loved reading, but I find it more enjoyable on my ereader.
• Portable fanfiction and other online material - there are sites that I've spent time on over the years, but it's hard for me to do a lot of reading on the computer. I always wished I could get it in print form. Now, for many of these sites, I can download the content and plop it on my reader just like any other book, or use the Kindle web browser to view them directly. I never could have guessed this would work out so well for me.
• Discovering new authors and reading more genres - I never really knew that I liked dystopian and PA fiction until a freebie book taught me otherwise.
• Which brings me to... free books! I mean, who ever thought that oodles of books would be legally free??? I've known about Gutenberg for over a decade, but this puts it in a different context. There really is a difference between a text file and an ebook. Same content, completely different experience.

[astra]

1. The best thing is that I read more because it is portable and always with me. On weekdays I can read during lunch in canteen.

2. I spend less money on books.
Library is rubbish in my town. I dislike paperbacks. I buy hardbacks. I also never read series until they are finished. Thus, I had to buy expensive hardbacks maybe 10 years ahead of the time based on reviews only. I could not wait 10 years because hardbacks usually are sold out very quickly. 10 years later I could start reading the series and find out I dislike it. All money down the drain.
Not anymore.

3. Standard one. Storage space.
When you live in a small country the result is very expensive & tiny house and if on top of that you have minimum salary, very little space in the house can be allocated for the books.

4. Theoretical one but it is always good to have a choice. If I were to read books in Russian, I would have to pay a lot because I don't live there. eBook reader allows me to avoid this expense.

[SameOldStory]

New authors. People that would never get a chance to be published are now only a click away. There are some stories that I'll always keep. On the other hand there are some that I bought that I just can't finish (same as with paperback books).

Convenience. Isn't it fun to come to the end of one book and have a long list of books to choose from?

Less money (sometimes). Many of the books that I read cost only a few dollars. A few have been full price. I now spend more than I used to though.

If Google (or someone) ever gets permission to sell the ebook edition of many out of print paper books I'll spend even more.

[LaurieGator]

Everyone has mentioned some great things.

I like the fact that when I go to the grocery store, I have all of my cookbooks on my e-reader! Hmmm, I am craving some coq au vin tonight what ingredients do I need to make this? Cool, bananas are on sale now what do I need to make some banana bread?

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by LaurieGator

Everyone has mentioned some great things.

I like the fact that when I go to the grocery store, I have all of my cookbooks on my e-reader! Hmmm, I am craving some coq au vin tonight what ingredients do I need to make this? Cool, bananas are on sale now what do I need to make some banana bread?

That's a great idea! I should start doing that - I could keep the cookbooks on an SD card if they end up taking too much space....

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by LaurieGator

Everyone has mentioned some great things.

I like the fact that when I go to the grocery store, I have all of my cookbooks on my e-reader! Hmmm, I am craving some coq au vin tonight what ingredients do I need to make this? Cool, bananas are on sale now what do I need to make some banana bread?

brilliant! I can't get used to ereaders and cooking, but having a bunch of recipes at hand is wonderful!

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

I did NOT expect to babble on about my Kindle at the office ....

I've been referred to in work emails as Mr Ebook.

Regards
Caleb

[Latinandgreek]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I've been referred to in work emails as Mr Ebook.

Regards
Caleb

What a great nickname!

[caleb72]

The other thing that I've noticed is my building desire to help independent authors. The same thing happened for me when I became more deeply involved with independent music software.

I wanted to help the developers and ended up having a website with software tutorials, produced a manual or two, beta-tested, moderated an official forum and even wrote briefly for a magazine in the UK.

In only a couple of months here I've already started taking on some proof-reading for a couple of authors I like and even as I read released books, I'm highlighting problem passages and errors and passing my notes to the authors afterwards.

Regards
Caleb

[Scott Nicholson]

Caleb, there's a good communal and pioneering spirit developing!

I enjoy the "dictionary" feature on my Kindle, though I am still figuring everything out.

Scott

[SameOldStory]

Originally Posted by LaurieGator

Everyone has mentioned some great things.

I like the fact that when I go to the grocery store, I have all of my cookbooks on my e-reader! Hmmm, I am craving some coq au vin tonight what ingredients do I need to make this? Cool, bananas are on sale now what do I need to make some banana bread?

"Hmmm", indeed. You've got me thinking. Boy does that hurt!

Saturday, for the first time, I saw a large Kindle that was actually working. Until now the only large ones I've seen were dead. Were this available last year I probably would have gotten it.

Using my 6 inch reader while shopping could be a useful, but what has caught my imagination was using the larger Kindle as a cookbook at the counter.

I don't think that a 6 inch reader would work as well for many reasons.

Has anyone done this with a large format e-ink reader?

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Scott Nicholson

Caleb, there's a good communal and pioneering spirit developing!

It's when you realise that authors are part of your community that everything changes. To me, the best cure for the desire to pirate or use pirated ebooks is knowing the authors trying to make a living from writing.

It worked like a charm for me with indie software developers as well.

Regards
Caleb