Sunday, January 23, 2011

My confession - ebooks vs. paper

After two dozen posts extolling the virtues of ebooks, I am finally going to write one praising paper books. 
My confession is: Rereading is easier on physical books!
Image From www.Gawker.com

My most recent hardback buy was Towers of Midnight by Brandson Sanderson and Robert Jordan, from the Wheel of Time series. This is the penultimate book in the series, and I was incredibly kicked to be able to get it on the day it released (as I was in the US of A at that time).
I completed this monster-sized novel on my birthday, one day and one night after it arrived, as it was an early arrival birthday gift. One really can’t get all the implications of such a busy book in so short a time, so I let everything simmer for a few weeks.

Last weekend, I decided to re-read the second half of the book…it felt great to be able to easily pick spots to slow down for, turning pages kept my momentum going. I've even taken to reading it for a few minutes every other day, just to re-read parts that I might have missed earlier. The pages feel great, with that still-stiff, only been read by one person in the world, feeling.
This is probably the only book that could have prompted this confession - I'm a little obsessed with the Wheel of Time series, as you might know.

I probably wouldn’t have read this again if I had only an ebook version – sad but true.

New to Wheel of Time?
You can read my review of the Towers of Midnight here
New to eBooks?
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9 comments:

  1. I know exactly what you mean. And if you read on a Kindle, you can't even find page numbers to refer to! I haven't reread a single book on my Kindle. And I haven't gone back to a particular part in a book on it after reading it. It's just not user friendly in that way.

    I will always love paper books for many reasons, but the ability to easily find a part I enjoyed in the past is one of the main reasons.

    Have a great one!

    Selena

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  2. That's so true! I love my Reader, but I'll never stop reading paper books. The two formats are good for very different things.

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  3. @selena - you articulated that much better than I could! That was really why I haven't read anything more than once on the Kindle!!

    @Erin - Yup, also completely right. They'll never take away from each other, but both have their own niches of use.

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  4. Wow, you're description makes me love printed books all over again! Indeed, there are times when that weighty book (in this case, a huge tome ^_^) in the hands is one of the best parts about reading. Or re-reading. :o)

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  5. Thanks for your comment on my blog :)

    To answer your question: The dropped shadow is part of a standard blogger template I used. It is one of the awesome inc. templates :) I hope that helps :)

    I do have to confess that I like just regular plain paper books over ebooks. I get a headache more easy when reading e-books on my pc. Then again, I do have an e-book reader on my iPhone because that is just easier when you are in the bus or train. (make sure to take your phone charger along though since it uses up a lot of your battery)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey, you won one of the 10 Jessica Inclán ebooks on my blog, I was trying to reply by email or something but blogger is a terrible platform... Anyways.
    I'm not sure if you can or can't pay it forward giving it away, since Jessica was supposed to contact everyone, I suggest you discuss it directly with her. Either that or email me at mayarend -at- yahoo.com.br and I'll give you her email address ^^
    Hugs and congratz

    ReplyDelete
  7. @Alisha - how nice, thank you for saying that :)

    @May - YAY!! I've recvd an email from Jessica, but I didn't have time to download the book. Will be doing that soon.

    @uni- I do agree - ebooks rule while traveling!

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  8. true its harder on the kindle to read specific parts... unless you book mark them
    its way easier to visualize how far into a paperback a particular bock is.

    dont understand why you cant re read in a kindle.. i do it all the time..

    paperbacks are still awesome though
    found this awesome bookstore which has a huge collection of perry mason, each at Rs 75

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  9. Sandip - I might re-read a book very occasionally on the laptop, and sometimes on a kindle. However, it is much much easier to pick up random chapters of a book or flip through while using a paper book.
    I'll have to start bookmarking my fav bits, I've never done that yet on the kindle.

    ReplyDelete

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