I've seen a lot of people asking how readers prefer to read: digital vs paperback and I've always said digital. Since I got my Kindle I don't like the feel of a book, I dislike having to use 2 hands and I no longer like the weight of a book.
My Kindle is lightweight, it holds my library (plus a fuck lot more) and I can easily prop it up on different surfaces with no prob.
I also have a Kindle Fire that has a case which stands it up vertically or horizontally for reading or watching movies. Absolutely freaking brilliant. Adore it.
I've discovered the only real drawback is the TBR pile. Sharing a library with Carolyn means there are a few thousand books to choose from. And Carolyn is voracious. Obviously I'm not downloading all the books she's getting nor does she download all the books I add but there's still a lot of books between us.
And I don't know what they are.
Sounds silly, no? But it's a huge problem when you read a review of a book that sounds amazing. You buy it. But you're reading the latest Crusie and loving it. Then you finish Crusie and there's that Kleypas you're dying to dive into. And then one day you see a title sitting on your Kindle and you have no freaking idea what it is.
Without immediate access to the cover or black blurb (covers are on the Fire but the Kindle basic where I have most of my books, no covers) you don't know what book it is. I never had this problem with paperbacks. I have hundreds of books in my Kindle and probably don't know/remember what half of them are.
So I put as many as possible in collections and have even started a collection called SERIOUS TBR for those books I'll forget because the author is unknown and the title won't stand out for me, but I really want to get around to reading.
What about the rest of you e-readering people. What's your secret to keeping your library?
The only downfall of Kindle, IMHO, is that they don't show the blurbs to the books. So I use Calibre to track my library and various collections.
ReplyDeleteI have the same problem, and it's one of the reasons I've mostly stopped buying books for the time being. I have a marker on Calibre for books I really want to read, but it has so many, it's no longer useful. And not all of my books wind up on Calibre anyway.
ReplyDeleteI should add though, that I have a similar problem with my physical books. They got lost in the piles and I forget about them. What I'm trying to do this year is focus on those books I really wanted to read and then forgot about.
ReplyDeleteI do not rule my library; my library rules me. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI don't feel qualified to comment as you know I loves me some real hold in the hand, bend the ears and crack the spine books.
ReplyDelete:)
You crack the spines??? You heathen!!
ReplyDeleteNo, and I don't dog ear anymore either (I have a lovely Orlando bmark). I was just saying I prefer books, no matter how many I have...
ReplyDeleteNever mind.
:P
I don't have that many digital books--after my lovely Sony reader died I couldn't afford another and reading at the desktop for more than a few minutes at a time is exhausting for a number of reasons--but I had this same problem with the physical TBR mountain range, particularly now that it's spread to several rooms.
ReplyDeleteI even tried to put them all in (virtual) shelves using LibraryThing, but I haven't been too consistent with it so...
I love my Kindle except for the blurb/cover thing too. I still buy real books from time to time when they are not available electronically in Oz, which is more often than I'd like. (Mary Balogh, Loretta Chase, Lauren Willig to name a few)
ReplyDeleteI have also felt obliged to buy books where I have the rest of the series in book form, but I'm getting over that. I'll probably end up buying the earlier books for my Kindle one of these days when I have more money than sense.
I have a wish list on Amazon. That's basically the only way I can control my TBR file. I try to only download the books I'm ready to read now. That works pretty well but there are some books that have been sitting on the Kindle for a while that I never seem to get to.
I try to group my books by author (once I've read them) or by genre eg steam punk, contemporary since I don't read a lot of those.
But the reasons I REALLY love my kindle are:
1 It is SO lightweight. No more hefty tomes giving my a hand cramp. Take note JK Rowling...
2 No-one knows what you're reading. That's a big plus if you are embarrassed by some of the covers that currently out there.
3 I can take it with my on my holiday and not worry about finding space in my luggage for books or of having nothing to read.
What I DON'T like is the ads on my Kindle because they don't apply over here... and that's a shame cos some of them look really good.