Audio, Paper, or E?

What’s your preference?

I really appreciate the practicality and simplicity of the E-book, especially for taking along places, because it takes up so little room in my bag!! And, with the night light attached to the cover, it’s quite easy to read in bed! And it holds so much.

Therein lies a wee bit of a problem. So many books….even FREE books… and so little time to read in comparison.

But I download them, anyway, because I just add them to my ever growing list of  To-Read-One-Day. And I can freely delete them if I prefer.  The major downside to an e-book is it’s not sharable (most aren’t, anyway).  And that can be a bit of a problem.

Then there’s the audio book--- always borrowed, never bought. Some audio book readers are incredible. The reader for the one  I’m listening to right now can change her voice ever so slightly for each character and I’m totally taken in and can visualize the characters in my mind.  That’s the best part about audio books. That along with being able to multitask i.e. listen and knit, drive, cook, or whatever.  The frustrating part is that one can’t really ‘speed read’ audio books or skim, so when it says ‘9.5  hours ’, it will take 9.5  hours to complete.  And one has to listen to every detail. I know some audio books online can be sped up, though. As an aside, I remember listening to a book called Slow Down (or something to that effect), and there I was speeding up the audio so that I could get through it quickly. Ridiculous, no? 

And, of course, the good ol’ paperbased book. With interesting covers, worn pages, and being bookmark friendly. And touchable, smellable, and markable. I still like those best.

I have decided that e-books are great for fiction reads that I don’t care to find a place for on my bookshelf, anyway. There are few fiction books that I would read twice.  I, however,  like my non-fiction books to be REAL if they are shelf , study, and share worthy.

I’m definitely torn between electronic and paperbased. But really, as long as I have something to read wherever and whenever, I’m a contented bibliophile.