You all know I love to read. Books are like good friends who don't talk back :-) For years I struggled with moving to the whole "E-Book" concept because, to me, nothing could really replace that feeling of a real book in my hands. But, then my parents got me a Kindle for Christmas a few years ago and I discovered that there really are some benefits to the whole e-book concept. Eventually, I emptied my bookshelves and sold all of my "real books". I still go back and forth with what is really the best way to read so I thought I'd throw down some pros and cons of an e-reader just for "fun"
Pro - I can get e-books very inexpensively I have a $20.00 a month budget for books. If I search I can find free books or books for $0.99 each - even new releases by my favorite authors at times. This means I can get tongs of books. I usually "spurge" on one or two books that go with a series I'm reading but otherwise stick to the cheap books. If I was buying real books - that $20.00 might get me two books a month.
Con - I never have any idea what I'm reading. When I read a paper book, I see the cover, the title, the back of the book every single time I pick it up. I can remember the author and the title because of this - it is always in front of me. With an e-book I never have any idea what I'm reading HA! I never see the cover of the book and never read the back of a book.
Pro - It's so easy to take my "book" anywhere I go. Not to mention that I can "load" it with a handful of new books to read so no matter when I finish a book I always have a new one to read. This is nice for traveling. I used to take a grocery bag full of books with me anytime we traveled . . . now I just put my kindle in my purse and go.
Con - I can't remember what books I've read and never re-read them. When I had a bookshelf full of books (or two . . or three bookshelves!) I had them all organized alphabetically by author (and yes, I had a spreadsheet of every book I owned!). Every January, I would start back at letter "A" and reread just about every single book on my shelf throughout the year. If I got the latest book in a series, I would reread that entire series before I read the new book. It was awesome. Now, I really am clueless what books I read last week, let alone last month. I have not figured out anyway to categorize the books on my kindle to keep series together or to put books I've read in a certain spot. I wish it had bookshelves . . . ..
Pro - Storage is easy. I do miss having bookshelves of books in my home. I think they add character to a house but, I really don't have a place for bookshelves full of books so not needing to store them is a good thing.
There's a short list for you :-) I really do love my kindle but I do find that I like reading non-fiction, "self help" (for lack of a better word) books as paper books. I feel like I get more out of them when I can turn back three or four pages easily and re-read something I didn't quite understand. I find on the Kindle, it's hard to move back a few pages to read something again. I also like being able to mark up a book that I'm reading to learn from so having the paper copy sure is nice!
Now, I think I'll go read !!
