What you prefer? Physical book or digital book?

Chinasa

I have many friends who like to read a lot, and we always discuss about books. But may of them not fan if digital books, they prefer physical books. We always debet on this.
My question to all of you is what you all think?
For me ebooks are always better. You can read them anywhere with multiple devices, can add notes, it doesn't req paper so saves some trees. And req no space at all.
But still there are many books even new, specially books indian languages are not available in digital format. So many a times there is no option for physical book. What do you think?

seatlawyer

I used to love paper books. Nothing beats the smell of print, the feel of turning the leaves of a paper book, the crinkling sound of paper, the sheer ecstasy on flipping through the pages of a new book you just purchased (or received as a gift; thankfully, my friends know that ).

But then, I seriously ran out of space to store the books properly (by the way, I'm a lawyer by profession, so have tons and tons of law reports and legal referencers in my small apartment, besides my non-law, pleasure reading books). The problem came to a head when my paper books started getting physically damaged in storing and retrieving due to lack of proper space. Believe me, it hurts when the cover or pages of paper books get damaged, torn, mutilated (at least, it hurts me). In fact, I used to hate those friends whom I lended a book and they dog-eared them; I really love my books. But ultimately, I had to surrender to space constraint and get a Kindle. In fact, my Kindle lay unused for quite some months as I just couldn't get it in my heart to 'abandon' paper books.

Of course, a Kindle can never beat a paper book (at least not until they come up with some mechanism so Kindle emits a fresh print scent or a musty old paper scent!). But Kindle has its own advantages, foremost being the sheer number of books you can carry in a device thinner than a passport  (right now, I have about 250 ebooks in my Kindle using about 500 MB space and I still have about 2.5 GB free). Then I also like Kindle's inbuilt dictionary, the ability to share quotes from Kindle directly to Facebook and ease of purchasing books.

Besides the nostalgia associated with paper books, a big hindrance in ebooks is that many important, indeed must have books (especially educational works and standard legal texts) are never published as ebooks. Don't know whether its the publishers' greed or the fear of ebook piracy or a combination of both.

All said, even today, since it has took me some time to move on to ebooks, I tend to stay away from paper books for the fear of being 'entrapped' by paper again! Maybe its that my generation has had such a profound connection with paper books from the time we learnt how to read, and going back years and years, that we have some sort of a subliminal attachment with paper books.

Ahmedsalman

Digital books

bookie

I find digital books are best unless there are some technical diagram or photos involved. Then I would prefer paper books.

soothsayer

Preference is always for an ebook for the convenience offered.

Kindleking

I love physical books because of the seer pleasure of holding and feeling the same and the smell of the papers..But no body can argue the ease of use, storage and usability in multiple devices.

Chinasa

for the generation, who learnt to read on paper books.... the bond to physical books remain forever, though we can adopt to the newer tech offering convenience, ease of use and availability.
Interesting will be to see  the next generation who has digital screens in hand before they learn to read, bonds with physical books.

Akm1001

To my mind its a matter of habit... there was a time when I never thought i will get past paper books. But kindle changed it and now wherever i go my kindle is there with me.

Mitu.delghy

Digital

wangwilly

I was prefer physical book, but after my all bookshelves are full and the book's price is getting higher every year and also it's to hard to find a good book in my country, now I prefer digital book because it's very handy to bring anywhere and I don't need to worry about how to store my books again and also it's save my money very much.