
As We May Read (2015) - diodorus
https://craigmod.com/sputnik/as_we_may_read/
======
throwanem
I've never had this relationship with books. With _stories_ , yes, and with
nonfictional texts, and to some extent even with whatever of an author can be
found within his words. That's the magic and the pleasure that's kept me
reading nonstop since my mother got me going when I was two. But the
physicality of paper has, past earliest childhood, been little more than an
encumbrance. I read my first book from a screen at...ten? Twelve? Something
like that - and I've never wanted to go back to paper; I now only do so when
no other option exists.

I've heard similar statements from others who began reading in digital media
at a relatively young age. I wonder if that's what makes the difference?
Certainly it makes as much sense as anything else I can think of offhand.

~~~
interfixus
Getting close to sixty. By the sound of it, generations older than you. I used
to own thousands of paperbooks - these days, they're down to around a hundred.
I have preferred digital for as long as screen quality has made it viable,
meaning roughly the last ten years.

Mind you, I don't own a Kindle, and most likely never shall. Nobody gets to
looking over my shoulder as I read - and certainly not Amazon - because _that_
distracts and destroys my reading experience.

~~~
throwanem
Fewer generations than I'd prefer, if I'm honest; the plural doesn't really
apply. I used to laugh when my mother would tell me that youth is wasted on
the young. Lately I understand why she never laughed when she said it.

That said - an excellent point, with which I agree wholeheartedly. Calibre is
an excellent tool, even if I could wish it handled PDF generation better - but
that's a tall order, and really only an issue for _The Art of Electronics_ and
the like.

I also live in a ~600sf apartment, which is about all the space I really need
but which also puts a pretty sharp limit on the volume of my physical library.
It works well to go digital by default, and reserve paper copies for special.
(That said, I do wish I had space for a shop! Building a table in my front
room is doable enough, but does rather cramp things while underway.)

------
gommm
I'm asthmatic so while I've always loved books for their content, I've always
feared old paper books for their capacities to give me a runny nose or an
asthma attack. !s much as I loved the stories, the physical form of books was
the enemy.

And that's why, I love my ereader, it allows me to read books easily, it saves
space and allows me to travel with all the books I currently read (that's why
I started using ebooks on a palm a long time ago).

However, I don't love DRMs, I don't like the idea of Amazon knowing what I
read, so I tend to either buy DRM free epubs or if I have no choice buy a DRM
encumbered format and strip the DRMs with calibre.

------
criddell
ebooks are a godsend for people with poor eyesight.

I love my Kindle, but I've slowed down my ebook purchases because of Amazon's
latest DRM (KFX). Until it's cracked, I'm only purchasing books I know are DRM
free (many from Tor).

The only workaround I know of right now is to get Amazon to send you the file
with the older DRM but then you lose all of the advantages of the newer file
format (mostly around typography). I'm not interested in doing that.

Have we reached the age of actual strong DRM? AFAIK, iBooks DRM also hasn't
been cracked. No idea about the epubs from Google.

------
klez
In my opinion, the essay[0] referred to in the introduction of the article is
a better read. It gives very good reasons why some people still prefer
physical books, without denying (on the contrary, praising) the many
advantages of digital books.

[0] [https://aeon.co/essays/stagnant-and-dull-can-digital-
books-e...](https://aeon.co/essays/stagnant-and-dull-can-digital-books-ever-
replace-print)

------
hoodwink
The reason I can't give up Kindle and return to physical books is because I
get too much value out of my digital highlights and annotations. As the author
writes in his essay:

> To return to a book is to return not just to the text but also to a past
> self. We are embedded in our libraries. To reread is to remember who we once
> were, which can be equal parts scary and intoxicating. Other services such
> as Timehop offer ways to return to past photos or past tweets. They, too,
> are unexpectedly evocative. Far more so than you might think. They allow us
> to measure and remeasure ourselves. And if a resurfaced tweet has an
> emotional resonance of x, than a passage in a book by which you were once
> moved must resonate at 100x.

Along these lines, we've developed a service that helps you effortlessly
reconnect with your Kindle highlights. If you'd like an invite to the private
beta, email me at dan@rekindled.io.

------
gshubert17
The title pays homage to "As We May Think" (1945) by Vannevar Bush.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-
we-m...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-
think/303881/)

