
Ask PG: Do you still own books? - graeme
I read &quot;Stuff&quot; recently. I&#x27;ve been steadily shedding possessions, and am happier for it.<p>Books were the notable exception in your essay. They&#x27;re my exception too.<p>Since you wrote the essay, many have switched to e-books. Did you? If you did switch, why did you?<p>http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.paulgraham.com&#x2F;stuff.html
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unimpressive
I buy most of my books from thrift stores, the major advantage of this is that
I can spend less money, get things that may never be published electronically
or that I didn't know I wanted, and don't have to make any record anywhere of
what books I own. (On the receipt the purchases are charged in generic
categories as opposed to specific titles. Even if I were paying with a credit
card you wouldn't know what I have.)

With that in mind the library of books I would even want to buy electronically
is limited. A further limitation of e-books is that they often come with DRM.
E-books that I've seen are sequential access, paper books are random access.
Search helps bridge the gap here. (Paper books will never have search, and
it's arguably a more useful feature than random access. Especially if your
E-reader software supports bookmarks.) The major advantage of an E-book is
that it takes up basically no space. Considering the flexible media potential
of electronic computers, that's sort of disappointing.

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foobarbazqux
Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for
information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back.

There's nothing fundamental stopping e-books from being random access, type in
the page number and there you are. Then again, e-books can sometimes lose page
numbers altogether.

e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or
get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book.

Just some more pros and cons I thought of.

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unimpressive
>Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for
information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back.

An E-book probably has the last two as well. These are almost ineffectual
compared to direct word search.

>e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or
get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book.

Sure, but if you _do_ buy a paper book at least you can sell it. You will
never be able to recoup any of the money in your ebook library.

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hashtree
Avid physical book reader, particularly for anything professionally related.
For me, there is no substitute for a physical book. They are extremely
durable, inexpensive, reliable, allow me to write in them (e.g. corrections
and ideas), highlight in different colors, can be set on a book holder next to
me for reference while coding, be easily shared, be easily gifted, can have
several open at once for reference, last longer than I have been alive, etc.
There is a beauty in their simplicity and barebones functionality.

TL;DR Give me physical books or give me death.

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Zigurd
One problem with programming books is that code listings are not well
formatted. Paging through a code listing on paper is not ideal. But it is
usually even less ideal paging through a listing in an e-book format.

E-books _should_ be better than print. They should have at least scrolling
code, syntax coloring, and and updates straight out of repos.

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nogoodnik
Almost all of my books are on paper. I don't mind the space they're taking
(six or so bookshelves throughout the house), and I'm past the stage of my
life where I moved every other year, so there's no real incentive to get rid
of them. They look good, are easy to take care of, and every so often I'll
find myself with a few hours of free time and enjoy reading -- or rereading --
them. They are not clutter.

If my kids share my interests, they'll be happy I kept them (discovering my
dad's stash of 1970s _Scientific American_ was a high point of my youth), and
if not, they'll get rid of them when I'm gone. No worries.

Most of my books are non-fiction. I read a lot of fiction, but tend to use the
library for that, except for a few authors I know I'll want to read more than
once.

I've got nothing against ebooks (provided they have no DRM) but I guess I just
don't need them.

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stretchpants
I have donated 90% of my shelves to the library replacing them with digital
versions. The only books I'm keeping are first editions, rarities, art or
photography books. I like the notion of paper books, had 5 large bookshelves
full, but I hate moving with them and the Kindle/iPad setup is really quite
nice.

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chiph
I gave all my books to Goodwill last year -- a lifetime of collected & curated
sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks, plus some antique tech titles (the "Be Book" was
in the pile) and went digital.

I have maybe 20-25 books now. Nearly all of them are technical titles, because
the typical reader device isn't large enough to display their diagrams/charts
(Amazon doesn't sell the 10" Kindle any more, and iPad-like devices don't have
the battery life for a reader)

I do miss the possibility of re-reading the titles that never made it to
digital (muddy copyright ownership, lack of interest on the part of the
publisher), but I'm happy that perhaps someone browsing through Goodwill might
pick it up and enjoy it too.

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lutusp
> I gave all my books to Goodwill last year ...

Why not a local library? Same tax advantage, but a much higher chance that the
books will get into the hands of readers at no cost.

I mean, assuming lending libraries even exist any more -- I haven't checked.
:)

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chiph
I found the local libraries to be disappointing (Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin)
in that they focus on romance and children's books. They have no interest in
older sci-fi paperbacks, and certainly not in acquiring 4 cubic yards of them.

In tech towns like Raleigh, Austin, the Bay Area, I would think there'd be a
market for a sci-fi/fantasy specific lending library, but I don't know if it'd
pay to run it as a business.

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tjr
I've made little headway into ebooks, for a number of reasons: a lot of the
books I want to read are not available in electronic form; a lot of the books
I want to read I already own paper copies of, and I feel little incentive to
buy them again; I find that I usually prefer reading in paper form rather than
electronic form, especially for anything longer than a couple of pages or so.

That said, I have recently read several novels on my phone, and found that to
be a surprisingly pleasant and effective way to read fiction.

Alas, the recent disclosures have fanned the flames of personal privacy and
free software idealism in my thinking, reducing what little fondness I had
grown for ebooks.

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brador
Ebooks and privacy? I'm not seeing the link, explain?

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tjr
Things like:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230487030457749...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html)

And more generally, moreso from the free software angle:

[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-
ebooks.html](http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.html)

Of course, there are suppliers of ebooks besides Amazon, or besides Apple, who
do not infringe upon at least most such concerns.

~~~
brador
Interesting. You can root a nook, root, load your ebooks through android apps,
enjoy eink, with some privacy? Also, turn off wifi and load the ebooks through
memory card.

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mark_l_watson
I have been trying to get rid of 'physical stuff' also. I still buy about 10%
of my technical books in paper form (usually an eBook pBook combo), but I
really prefer having everything in eBook form. Many eBooks are provided in
PDF, iPad, and Kindle formats. I make permanent backups of the PDF versions in
case the publisher can not provide fresh copies in the future.

For fun reading the local library is a good source of pBooks (and movies on
DVD, audio books, etc.)

My wife and I have been talking about living for months at a time in different
areas of the world, for fun and eduction. That will require at least being
able to live for several months at a time without a lot of stuff.

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kcent
I used to be a lover of Fantasy Paperbacks ... but had to get rid of most of
them when my husband and I sold everything to move to SV. Since then I now
keep 90% of my books digital, which I fought against at the time, but
appreciate it now! My husband had an even harder time with clearing out RPG
hardcovers.

Between us I think we kept about a dozen books; autographed copies of things
or gems that we can't get in digital, but that's it.

Programming books we long since switched to digital - those giant tomes were
not only a huge waste of space but went out of date way too soon. Yay for
O'Reilly.

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joshbert
The problem is that I like to read a lot. Usually a book per week, so I keep
almost everything in eBook form.

As a consequence, my personal approach is to only keep up to 5 physical books
at any given time. Basically I buy the book in eBook form and if I like it a
lot - like really, really love it, I can order a physical copy. At that point,
I should have already made the decision of which one of my 5 physical books is
going to get donated to make space for this one.

I hate clutter and my best work is done in focused and clean environments, so
that's why I do this.

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andy_adams
I mow my lawn with a manual push mower, I don't own a smartphone and I still
prefer paper books. Our society is moving towards a constantly-connected life,
but I'll go out on a limb and say it's good for the soul to get away from
electronics _completely_ every so often. That's why I'll (probably) never give
up paper books.

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LoganCale
I disagree. I think it's good to get away from being constantly connected all
the time, but that doesn't inherently exclude ebooks. Ebooks are just a
convenience for me, and I can take my entire book collection everywhere with
me on my Kindle, with tremendous battery life, and a built in light so I can
read at night.

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login1234
I own lots of books. I still buy books. I prefer to read books. e-readers have
never won my heart.

If I were still in university I would maybe preferred those text books all be
in digital form so I can carry less. However, that was long-ish ago.

still have all my old programming books and find it a lot easier to flip back
to things.

30 yrs old; don't care for e-readers.

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danial
I have a friend who has a lot of books and loves to loan them to people who
are interested. I love going to his place because I usually bring back a few
and we almost always end up talking about ideas in those books rather than
discussing the latest material possessions we have acquired.

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ekm2
Math books are the hardest for me to read online,so I have hard copies.A pile
of them.

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JeremyMorgan
For tech books, it's all Kindle for me. But reading for pleasure I still like
the pulp. Some of my most favorite books I've ever read were found in some
indie bookstore, antique store or garage sale. Hard to replace that.

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adamnemecek
I've tried to switch completely to e-books but when the content get technical,
I still find paper books a lot easier to read (probably since you can go back
and forth easier than with e-books).

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nicklovescode
Not really. Traveling for the last few months my kindle has been a godsend. No
desire now that I'm back to get the physical alternative.

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graeme
Anyone else feel free to comment, especially if you were a paper book lover
but switched.

~~~
LoganCale
I exclusively read ebooks now, but I still like some paper books as well. So
now I just collect ones in print that I really like.

