Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- I just did this for the first time.
<aside/>I lost interest in programming for pleasure (thank you LLMs), so decided to spend a few years learning all the prerequisites to understand the General Theory of Relativity.
It is so nice to get back to learning from printed matter. The contrast is great. The ability to flip pages back and forth to scan past material is much better than an ebook experience (like referring to a figure on a different page). Best of all, I don't get distracted or tempted to open up a browser window and start doomscrolling. The heft is oddly reassuring too.
- I use an ereader a lot. They have glaring lacks that nobody seems to have addressed:
1. Two page layout. This gives you more context when reading.
2. Imperfect printing. Older books have imperfect impressions of letters.
3. Tan colored background, which varies across the page and from page to page. Grey is so sterile.
4. Cannot stick a thumb on a page and flip forward and backward with your other thumb.
by WalterBright - > Two page layout. This gives you more context when reading.
That was exactly the reason why I tried out the 12.9” iPad Pro back in like 2016. I used that for 8 years, and now am on my second.
by mcphage - On the flipside, if I fall asleep reading my ereader, I almost never lose my page. It just goes to sleep too, with the last open page ready to resume.by sfRattan
- These are valid. I vastly prefer physical books for things like academic and reference material (and TTRPG books) because of 4 in particular. Many kinds of books, it's very important to be able to flip quickly between arbitrary points, using your digits as quick temporary marks.
I still prefer ereaders for novels and most non-fiction books, though.
- Ereader software doesn't have bookmarks?by 1899-12-30
- I would be 100% behind a version of Infinite Jest where the footnotes are in a separate volume.
- I have very fond memories of reading hitchhikers guide to the galaxy with a friend in highschool. The book was old and had already started falling apart, and so we just broke it up into chapters and would pass it to the next person one chapter at a time.by themanmaran
- I feel like we’ve been hit by one of Michael O. Church’s troll agents.
1. Obsession with massive books.
2. High-value target (this community.)
3. Obviously bad idea that some people will treat as an earnest suggestion.
4. Oblique commentary on bad behavior by AI companies (destructive scanning of rare books.)
by ventura49 - At it's heart, this post is: if you own it, do what you want with it.
For a big book, cutting it up might be desired. Even though book lovers everywhere decry such a move, it's their book.
Obviously there is zero resale value for the book, but I have never sold a book I owned so that wouldn't bother me.
by _carbyau_ - I've already done this in my own life. I read dune by cutting the paperback into 3 books, one for each part.
I didn't like that it was so thick, but it was a small book dimensionally. Plus it was just a cheap used paperback that would be read once. I dont like e-readers, i like to dog-ear the pages and stuff
by NoidFonsense - This is a no-no for some of us, who like to keep books as"mint" as possible; it was even a struggle to get in to bending spines on paperbacks to read them
Nevertheless I could see doing this with old books where the pages are aleady coming out
Also I might enjoy the digital version of this, breaking up a PDF into smaller bite-sized chapters into a folder
by erelong - At that rate, you might as well buy and use an e-reader instead. It really doesn't get any more comfortable in the hands than a light device like a Kobo or whatever one you prefer.
- And you don't even have to hold it open and mess with bookmarks which at least to me was always super annoying. And the built in lamp, chapter search and dictionary. And single tap page forward and back. Physical books are beyond obsolete imho.by moffkalast
- I chop my books and read them on my reMarkable tablet. It really doesn't get any better.by davisr
- So many books not available as epub...by BeetleB
- I somewhat liked my Kobo except for how much Rakuten kept getting more aggressive with forcing their environment on me. And then my Kobo decided to wipe and reset itself on its own, losing all of my bookmarks and other data.
Nice hardware concept, completely unacceptable software.
by ocd - This seems like a lot of work for not a huge payoff. I get that the feel and experience of a physical book has a certain nostalgia, but for me, I'd just leave the big monster on the shelf and grab an epub from Anna's Archive. You have already ensured the author and publisher get paid, you might as well read on an e-reader, which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book.
Ebooks sync across devices, allow for a customized presentation, quick dictionary lookups, bookmarks, etc. The only slight edge I'll give to a physical book is the ability to easily make marginal notes in pencil -- I realize that ebooks have this feature too, it's just not as immediate or as frictionless.
by spudlyo - Not one of the things you mentioned about ebooks actually interests me. On the other hand, physical books are more comfortable to read, enjoyable to hold in your hands and flip the pages, don't ever run out of charge, and look nice when you put them on a shelf. For me, they are vastly superior to ebooks.
I say all this not to try to convince you that you're wrong (it's all a matter of taste after all), but to point out that this isn't just nostalgia. People who read physical books actually prefer them, even if their reasons aren't things you find important.
by bigstrat2003 - This is what I do as well.
Buy the paperback for larping and performative reading. Get the epub from Anna's to actually read it.
by ympb121 - for a lot of people the huge payoff is the experience of reading a physical book. the ergonomics and sensory aspects are very different.by zem
- I had to stop reading one of my favorite authors when I was doing infant duty with my oldest. The books kept getting thicker, and I could no longer one hand them comfortably reading either end of the novel due to the book's balance. I found a kindle mostly solved my problems, and I could keep reading again one handed.
That said, it never occurred to me to just cut up my book, so I could continue to read it comfortably. I think I might have chosen to do so though, since I find the tactile nature of reading a physical book to be more memorable than digital. Where the words sit on the page, and the act of turning the page, the smell, all does something to my neurons. For my junk novels, I don't really care, but for the authors I cherish, the closer to the printed word I can get the better the experience I have, and the more memorable the writing in general.
by milesvp - This post isn't aimed at people that read a physical book for "nostalgia". They read a lot of books and have already decided that they prefer physical books to an ereader.by NoahZuniga
- The problem with ebooks is that you cannot be 100% certain that you're reading the original text. That can only be preserved in physical copies. That's why the destructive book scanning for AI is such a tragedy. There's already plenty of examples of original texts being surreptitiously revised, and it happens with videos too.
- >which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book.
A physical book, you encounter in physical space. Thus has a lot more chance to get read. The ebook, one has to take a device and press some button, before the book has even a chance of getting seen...
My ebooks typically get downloaded once, and sits forever unread in some device..
A physical book, I take from a lib and gets read automatically, unless it finds its way to the underside of some furniture...
That IMHO nullifies any convience that e-books have..
by lolakutty - If you're into bookbinding (it's great fun! /s?) what you're doing is effectively making smaller "text blocks".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookbinding#text-block
Cover => recto/verso => Endleaf => Textblock{ signatures... } => ...then back to endleaf + cover like a sandwich.
I started with cereal boxes and old wrapping paper and have graduated to fancier wrapping paper and bookbinding board (stiffer, like matte-board).
The great benefit of doing something like this is being able to glue one of those cool ribbons into the spine for use as a bookmark!
by ramses0 - I came to a similar realization recently. I used to care so much about how pristine my books looked and then I realized that some of my favorite books I have found in used bookstores are ones which are written all over and have a well-worn feel to them. I now annotate all my books with pencil and also write my name in them. I love seeing a history of who's owned a given book when I open the front cover and see a name and phone number.by prydt
- The few times I've had a chance to have something signed by an author I like, I've deliberately taken along with me an old and well-loved copy of one of their books. I've bought the new one, sure, but it's the old one I'll ask them to sign. I don't even know if I'll like the new one yet! No one has said anything about it, yet, but I kind of hope they notice and appreciate it.by eszed
- I bought a copy of Warhammer Quest, a board game, from Lifeline for 5 bucks.
It came with annotations, some kids custom rules, their character sheets and the outline of a custom campaign they were writing. Its got so much texture.
by protocolture - I once read that the only way you can actually damage a book, is by not reading it.by jimnotgym