[deanhills]

I'm just wondering what members prefer if they read books.  Do they prefer paper books, or electronic readers like Kindle?

Off late with load shedding and hours of electricity downtime, I've discovered the love of reading again.  What I do is support our local swop shops where one can buy second hand books, and then return them for an X value to purchase more.  First it went slowly, but I now find myself quite passionate about my book reading again.

My preference has always been a nice paper book as there is something special with turning pages, and feeling real paper pages.  But then I had a problem.  A recent author I discovered, and particularly liked very much, was not that well known.  I couldn't find most of his titles in the swop shops, or even regular book stores.  I then checked out Amazon not sure whether I'd want to go through the upheaval of customs in South Africa (it's a serious big and very expensive deal to "import" anything here), and just for the heck of it googled free e-books.  I then discovered a wealth of online libraries.  I discovered one I liked and was then able to download all of the books I wanted for free.

This was a brand new way of reading books for me so there was a little bit of a learning curve involved of course.  First challenge was the extension epub didn't work with with the Kindle App on my Samsung Galaxy Tab2.  I then researched alternative readers and discovered FullREader which I downloaded from Google Play Store on my Tablet.  I'm using Samsung Galaxy Tab2 very old tablet, but still with a decent 3 GB RAM and 32GB storage. I found the books taking up the minimum space so no problem with storage. Second big challenge was that reading books drains the Samsung Tablet battery in no time.  I then had to learn how to turn everything on the Tablet off in Android, and now have the tablet on Airport Mode, Wifi and all connection turned off as well.  Additionally, I purchased a cheap PowerBank that works quite well when needed. I however soon acquired a rhythm with reading approx 50 pages before a recharge is needed.

In the end I took to electronic reading like a duck to water and although I still prefer my hard copy books, I'm enjoying electronic very much.  There are many pros for electronic reading vs paper books.  I like that the text is backlit and one can change the fonts if one wanted to do so.  Electronic reading is probably much cleaner than my second hand books - particularly considering Covid 19 times.  If ever I get to travel again, I'd be able to read a book anywhere, day or night.  

[sagher]

Well i am mostly read spiritual and religious stuff. and find what good and what bad for me.
My home language is Urdu and Punjabi. so i prefer stuff of these languages. and i spend almost 1 hour to read any book and if it is so long then i make hourly parts as topic.
Secondly my choice is to be read Homeopathic literature. and keen interest to learn about it.
I have collection of about 1000 books in my study room. and most of them are spiritual and homeopathic.
One of My favorite book is this  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philos...s_of_Islam

[tryp4vps]

No doubt I would still prefer reading paper books.

The reason is simple. I already spend a lot of time in front of digital monitors during my routine jobs. So, I would just want to avoid reading books on digital monitors as well.

[sAmI]

I still prefer reading paper books because i have a habit of it for a long time. Already i use PC for alot of hours a day and Mobile too so it's kinda better for me to not atleast use a tablet or anything for reading books. There are alot of book stores in pakistan where we get alot of the books most of them. but they are a bit expensive but exchanging can be helpful sometimes.
Another thing for kindle or anything would be the battery. I wont be waiting to charge it up just to read a book?
Well both have different advantages and disadvantages totally depends on the person!

Regards,
sAmI

[Kururin]

I prefer both. I do not care at the end of the day but I admit E-Book format is very easy for electronic based stuff like copying pasting and finding that specific page in the book for a quote.

[debjit]

I use my phone kindle app. The phone has with me all the time and it's a more convenient method for me. Due to lockdown, buying a book is really does not possible.

[deanhills]

I use my phone kindle app. The phone has with me all the time and it's a more convenient method for me. Due to lockdown, buying a book is really does not possible.

@debjit Don't you find that the Kindle as an App drains the battery quickly? I experienced that with my Samsung Galaxy Tab2. I then got myself a 10 000 PowerBank from Romoss. I think I'm getting into the electronic reader thing, but in the final analysis still prefer a paper book.

[tbelldesignco]

I use my 11" iPad Pro, its nice for being able to read journals and articles with the News app and with my Apple Pencil I am able to take screenshots of design magazines and the like and mark them up.

[tiwil]

I prefer paper books rather than electronic reader. Electronic reader may give flexibility where to read but I don't find it suits me. I often feel tired when reading with electronic reader, therefore I still prefer paper books.

At the same time, paper books give me some feeling that relaxed me. I would love to have more physical book to read.