I always do this with hardbacks too. I just hate seeing a tattered paper cover, especially when the hardback itself is rather ugly.
That hurts on so many levels. Lol. I genuinely despise e-books and electronic anything. I prefer hard copies of whatever it is I have (books, movies, games, etc).
I've shifted from earmarks to not earmarks in a general progression toward trying to treat my things nicer. In principle I think paperless/digital is better but I haven't made that shift. Have read one self-help book on a gifted Kindle, but for some reason reading fiction on a Kindle seems weird. My partner is a Kindle junkie though so I'm warming up to it, seeing her eat 1-2 books per week on it. We have a library program here that lets you "borrow" books for two weeks on your Kindle, but if you turn off the internet you can keep them forever. I want to take part in that program.
There's also a bunch of taster books - for $0.00 - you can download to read and keep forever. It's been great for me for research and learning to discern what I do or don't like about books. ie binge read whether junk or not as a learning process.
Has anybody else noticed how HEAVY some new books are these days? Is it a weird kind of paper? Ink? Mostly non-fiction hardcover reference books, but occasionally a fiction book as well. I've got a few I simply can't read because they're too heavy to hold. One is the fairly recent hardback edition of The Autobiography of Mark Twain (volume one.) I was so excited to get it, and tried to read it ...and nope. Not only does it weigh more than a large stuffed roasting chicken (I know, I weighed it) but the print is tiny. Try holding a roasting chicken at reading distance for a while and see how your wrists feel. I've got several other books that are the same ...can't really read them unless they're flat on a desk, which isn't the way I like to read. Why is this? I wish there was some way to tell beforehand, before ordering the books online.
This works well for the books I collect for the sake of artwork as well. Most of these stories can be had for from $0.00 to $0.99 on Amazon. No need to ever open the actual, untouched, never opened, vintage book. Last 10 or so...
I have been REALLY impressed recently with the quality of print-on-demand books I've bought. One in particular is self-published via Lulu. Just excellent quality. And I received one a couple of days ago which is traditionally published, but printed on demand. Again, very high quality, both cover and interior. I always figured they'd be cheap looking, but they're not.
I can't dog ear pages. It hurts me......so therefor I always carry around a bookmark and even though I support kindles/ebooks I much prefer to read paper copy, love the smell and the feel. Also since I use so much tech it feels nice to get away from it sometimes with a normal book.
Careful people, there have been quite a few mentions regarding the e-book. This is an e-book-free thread, and any that appear within my targets will find themselves with a one-way ticket to silicone hell where they belong.
Because you yourself are a technophobe or just because you know it will lead to a debate and you do not want a debate in the thread?
I'm not in the least bit a technophobe, daemon, but I once started a 'real books vs e-books' thread on another writers' forum and I might just as well have started a 'Religious Discussion' thread for the trouble it caused. Ahh, that hurts... and I was so keen on you.... nope, nope. I'm not going there.
Well when you phrase it as "real" books vs ebooks, you are kind of asking for it... (But I get it and I will stop now)
Noooo, the temptation to launch into an ebook diatribe is overwhelming. Must resist.... must resiiiiist...
I don't know why but I really don't feel comfortable with buying books that have a female protagonist. Although my sixteenth is on the 20th and I have asked for Rizzoli and Isles book and Divergent (although I am only asking for the former because I like the TV shows). Hardbacks for me. I like my books to wear away so easily and get bent whenever you turn a page. I'm gonna judge your book by its cover. I don't mind if it says 'Now a major film' if it has the actors on it then I'm not buying it. New fav person.
I used to be very upset when people 'marked' books, scribbled notes in margins, etc. However, since becoming a 'writer' myself, I have no problem doing this with paperback books. I use them as tools, and use highlighter pen, real pen, etc ...so that I can find what I need to find later on. But for some reason I still don't make marks in hardbound books. Of course I would NEVER mark a vintage book. And yes, I have a Kindle too. Great for light reading and portability. No reason there has to be conflict over this issue. Both kinds of books have a reason for being. I only get upset over the issue when folks advocate doing away with one or the other.
I will skim row after row of books in book shops looking at the titles and bindings, and if one's design strikes me as interesting I'll pick it up and leaf through it. I don't know if that's unusual though. But I am picky about the cover design/overall presentation. Also, strangely enough, I prefer paperbacks. It's a tactile thing.
My mom will use an ink pen and fill in any double o's she sees in a book. That's her bookmark. lol So if she read... "The cookbook was high on the bookshelf. She stood on a wooden stool to reach it." ... the o's in cookbook, bookshelf, stood, wooden, and stool would be colored. With ink. Permanently. And she wonders why I never borrow books from her... lol
I must admit, a lot of people really hate writing in books which I can understand, but it has it's place. I have a big hardback of Shakespeare, but I still buy his plays individually and put them in a metal box under my bed so I can write notes into the cheap paperback books. And the same with cheap collections of poetry - I do exactly the same thing. I also love second hand book shops and find someone has written notes in a book that interests me. Often they can be really interesting observations and ideas you would never have thought about otherwise!
I may be stating the obvious here but in terms of 'dog earedness', unless it's literally falling apart at the seams, I couldn't care less. In fact, I generally but not exclusively, tend to buy second hand books. There's nothing I love more than perusing the shelves of a second hand book shop until I happen upon a title that I've either been looking for, see work by an author that I've been meaning to check out or simply read the blurb and decide to take a chance on it. It's the content that matters. Having said that, you can keep ebooks as far as I'm concerned. I like to see the aged, yellowing pulp of a well read book; to imagine the many hands it's passed through and gave enjoyment and pleasure to. I like the smell. I like literature. I remember as a young boy being reprimanded by my uncle for defacing a book in my infantile boredom. 'Don't ever do that again' he said, 'books are precious.' It's stuck with me ever since.
Don't particularly see the value in reading the first sentence to arrive at a decision. That inevitably comes after the purchase, invariably followed by the next, then the one following that. You do know how the process works, eh?
Apologies, it's a bit of an in-joke between me, myself and I. If you have any desire to find its source, I recommend starting here: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/that-first-line-catcher.140756/#post-1360495 where I write: which sounds strikingly similar to what you wrote originally. The discussion that followed well... I'll leave that to your time and desire.
