I have used the Kindle for over three years now, and hardly ever use paper books anymore. I still buy them, but they have several disadvantages that get in the way of me actually getting though them:
- They are heavy. I read 200-300K-word books most of the time, and they can get pretty big. It’s hard to hold them comfortably.
- They don’t save your place.
- You need to keep the physical object with you; you can’t put it down at home and then resume on your iPhone while waiting in line at school.
- They are two-sided. You have to keep shifting how you hold it, and rolling over in bed, as you move from one page to the next.
- They don’t have lights built into the cover. Since I do almost all my reading at night before I sleep, this is a serious problem.
This is why I still haven’t finished the latest Alcatraz book despite Brandon Sanderson being my favorite living author. It’s just so hard to read physical books! I wonder how I did it all these years. Recently I won a book from a Goodreads giveaway and after trying to read it, I gave up and bought a Kindle version. I still love paper books. They look nice lined up on my shelves. They smell good. They have pretty covers. I really like looking at them and collecting them. But if I actually want to read a book, I’ll go with the Kindle every time.
