Book Readers

Hi there everyone, I got a Book Reader for Christmas and was wondering if anybody else has one and what they think of them in general?
I must say I really really like mine, being able to hold a whole library in my hand at one go gives me a kick!
I don't think they will ever replace paper books completely, but in this world of modern technology they are certainly great for carrying around on holiday or sitting on the train to work, or when in hospital, or just because they do what a great weighty novel does!!!
I think there is a bit of a snobby view in that people will say they aren't the same as holding a book in your hands, but I really think they are a useful tool to add to anybody's library.

I don't have one and have resisted, but for a vacation, I can sure see the value. As for snobby, maybe, but as with all tech, I would dread depending on an e-book, and having it go bloooey! Can't happen with a paper book. Plus, does anyone else ever stop and inhale hugely the lovely smell of a new book?

I must say, that for never planning on actually buying one, the one I got for free (Sony Reader PRS something or other), due to placing in a certain book website's contest (not LT), has been a great boon for when I need to be somewhere and can't conceivably carry 20 books with me, which I find, is very often. Mine has a nice leather cover, which makes it feel like I'm holding a real book. Sometimes, I turnPageFail, and find myself looking at the back of the unit.

The reader, Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and LT's "Get this book" page have made a deadly combination in reading great books for free. :)

Of course, I still read plenty of deadTreeBooks as well as eBooks.

My personal experience has been that I have enough books that I've either bought and haven't read, or are borrowing from a friend, to really need my book reader (Kindle, for me) other than when traveling.

I did make a concerted effort to read on it enough to get used to the page turn, because it's so unlike the experience of reading a paper book. (On the Kindle, the page reverses to white on black for a second, then reveals the next page.)

I do think there's room in my life for it, but it will take me deciding to use it more to actually use it more.

I happen to know that underwaterguy, who never uses my Kindle, is nearly finished reading Infinite Jest on his iPhone. So, there are users out there happy to look at a tiny screen, although having it also be his phone, music holster, sudoku tablet, and camera does put it in a different class from a dedicated ereader.

I love my Kindle. I'm not terribly worried about all my books going flooey (they're backed up, just like all my electronic everythings). I have a couple hundred free public domain books on it, which is really sweet. (I have a one-bedroom apartment and it was a thrill to get rid of all the public domain books I had on paper--which before anyone weeps were all ancient, falling-apart paperbacks anyway--which will probably still make someone weep, so I apologize.) It never took a lot of getting used to, for me, and I love being able to look things up online (there's a lot that I find myself wanting to look up when I read, but if I'm reading on paper I don't want to get up and go to the computer, and I end up just forgetting about it) and I love the dictionary.

@4 I read it on the Kindle, not the iPhone, but Infinite Jest makes the Kindle so very worthwhile. Not only is the Kindle about a tenth the size of the book (is it even that big?) but the footnotes! It's so nice to just click back and forth instead of flipping and having to hold two places. I think I'm going to go read it again now. (On the Kindle.)

I love mine! It's enriched my reading life and means I have more space for paper books that don't work well on e-readers.

Glorybe1 (and others), you might be interested in some groups on LT focused on e-Readers and e-books:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/tag/eReaders

I don't have an e-reader (not cost-effective for me now), but I can certainly see the convenience for traveling and for research. The integration with the internet and the built-in dictionaries would be very useful. I love hard-copy books, but I wouldn't mind using an e-reader alongside physical books sometimes, as a substitute for them when I can't carry the actual books around. I wish there were a better way to integrate note-taking so that notes could be saved and transferred to a computer better, and that e-book formats were all transferable between e-readers and to computers. I'd also be a lot more tempted if the physical books I bought came with a free or very low-cost e-reader version.

I just got an iPod Touch. I didn't buy it as an e-reader (needed a replacement for my old Palm Tungsten) but, and have installed Stanza e-reader software on the recommendation of a techie friend. I quite like it. The screen is small compared to a Kindle or other e-reader, but for a backup on the rare occasions I run out of paper books when I'm away from home, it's fine.

I do not see myself buying e-books, but I'm quite impressed at the selection of freebies available. Getting books is quick and simple as long as one has wi-fi. I am slightly regretting not getting an iPhone instead because of the difficulty of getting free wi-fi in all the places I want it, but I'm sure I'll develop work-arounds in time.

I don't plan to get an official e-reader for a few more years, but I'm sure I will eventually.

I've been reading books on my Palm for about 8 years (I got my first Palm 9 years ago!). It's not nearly as comfortable as reading a real book, and I'm rather more likely to go wandering off and do something else (my Palm is also a game machine, calendar, database (including my LT books)...). But as others have mentioned - it's absolutely glorious for travel. I've been on trips where I _ran_out_of_books - gave me the shakes after a day or two. With the Palm (and a charger handy - it won't last a full day of reading), I've got books.

Project Gutenberg has supplied me a lot of books - so has the Baen Free Library and Baen Webscriptions. I've gotten a few elsewhere, too, but those are the majors. I generally get them in HTML or .txt version, then use Interparse to turn them into plain-text .pdb Palm docs and read with Weasel. I've used others, but Weasel has what I need and no frills - I was using Mobipocket until the latest version was more than 2/3 of the memory space on my then-current Palm. I think the percentage has gone down, more because current PDAs have more memory than that Mobi has slimmed down, but I don't feel like bothering with it. My parents use Mobi, though, and like it.

I've been looking at ereaders, and the big screens are nice - not sure about the non-LCDness of them, whether it will be easier on my eyes or not. The problem is that, like Sonya's (husband?), I carry my Palm everywhere I go. An ereader would be a separate object of no utility _except_ for reading books, and I'd probably leave it at home unless I went on a real trip. I read on my Palm in doctors' waiting rooms, on line at the post office, while waiting for a bus/train...

Sometimes I read one book in both formats, but more often I'm reading one on the Palm (which will take weeks) and one or more on paper (which is usually done in days, if not hours). Reading the same book in both formats usually happens when I'm at an exciting bit in the book and have to go out...and I have that same book on my Palm (that's a major limitation).

#1 which make/brand/model did you get.

I've had the SOny505 for a few months now. I really enjoy reading with it. More so than a paperbook I think. However I still buy paperbooks becuase bookshops are just so much more plesant experiences than shopping online. I only ever want to just read, and so I'm not taken with the whole make the device do everything else at the same time funtion creep. But I can see how it may suit others.

It is very suitable for fiction reading, but I don't think it would do well for non-fiction texts. There are plenty of other models that are available that would be better - coping with diagrams and note-taking. There's a lot of new devices out and coming soon. It will be interesting to watch the format wars, and see where the market settles. That and the piracy/DRM issue will determine the future of ebooks, but I can't see them dissappearing. They're just too convenient.

>9 jjmcgaffey: jj, I read books on my Palm too, and for the same reason you do; I always have it with me. I also have a Kindle, though, and even though it means bringing something else along, I take my Kindle with me when I travel because the electronic ink screen is so much more comfortable to read than the backlit Palm screen. I read a lot on my Kindle at home as well. It's great for fiction books, especially series books, as you can just download the next book in the series when you finish the one you're reading. The prices are attractive as well.

Having read books on an old black and white Palm, a couple of smartphones with colour LCD screens, and now a Bebook (which I think has the same screen as the Sony and the Kindle), my subjective experience is that the Bebook is the only one that doesn't give me a headache with prolonged reading. It's also the only one where the batteries last long enough to keep you going through a longish journey.

Like others here, I use it mostly when travelling and tend to read mostly public-domain stuff from Gutenberg and the like.

The Bebook is fine for reading novels, but it's of little use for non-fiction. There's only minimal support for pictures or diagrams in the text. The resolution isn't good enough to display most scanned PDF pages legibly, and it tends to crash if you feed it big image files (Google books, etc.). It's also fairly hopeless for situations where you need to jump around between different sections of a book, or to look at different books side by side, so it wouldn't do for study purposes. With only ten keys, it wouldn't be easy to implement proper text search, and even following a simple footnote link is slow and involves lots of key presses to get back to where you were. I imagine that the big Iliad model with the A4-size touchscreen would solve many of those problems, but when you get to that size you might as well use a laptop. By the sound of it there will be better, cheaper screens along in a year or two...

My experience and habits are very similar to jjmcgaffey's (at #9).

I almost never carry a physical book around with me anymore (I save them for reading at home). In addition to Gutenberg and Baen books, I purchase new books from eReader–which used to have a good interface with the Palm site, which is how I started with them. I use eBook Studio to convert Gutenberg, etc. books to the .pdb format.

I really like my Zire for all of the uses I put it to, but I wouldn't mind a larger screen or a longer battery life.