Last year, as a jobless bum, I read over 80 books during the year. Plus about 50 magazines. This year, one of my resolutions was to not freak out that I have to go to the day job instead of reading my 80 books!

Yeah, I am freaking out, regardless... I've finished 3 books so far this year. Three. and this is Week 7 of the year: over two weeks to finish a single book?!? GAH!

Anyway.

I'm always amused when reading communities discuss eBooks...
29 Jan, Booking Through Thursday:Electronic vs Paper

I am happy to see that more and more people are trying eBooks. The part that amuses me is that probably 99% of the readers still prefer reading the dead tree version.

I read real books, I read eBooks on my Palm handheld, and I read PDFs on my computer. For text based books, I highly prefer to read it on my handheld. The most important reasons:

#1 I live in a tiny townhouse and I ran out of bookshelves even before I got here!

#2 My handheld is much easier to hold than a book! I have mild carpal tunnel pain, and sometimes it's tough holding a heavy book open. Even paperbacks get heavy when they are 600+ pages. :)

#3 I can read my handheld in the dark! The Palm screen is backlit, so I don't have to deal with lamps or the light switch.

#4 Free eBooks from Project Gutenberg!

#5 I love to push buttons! ;)

I totally love my Palm. But, yeah, there are some books that "must" be in full page book form... books with art work or craft instructions or any kind of photos. For those, I guess I prefer a dead tree book over a PDF... but it's just a mild preference. If I had a lap top, so that I could look at these types of books on my bed, where I do most of my reading and arting, I think I would lean more towards PDF.

But, back to my Palm handheld, I also love it because it's not a dedicated reader. I can play games, take notes, draw, and keep databases of addresses and birthdays... and books! laughs: BookBag by Wakefield Soft (Book organizer software)

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 12 feb 2009 Entry