Also at least I impulse bought a lot more. Although some impulse purchases like Pounded by the Pound, turn gay by the socio economic effects of Britain leaving the EU, were worth it but 80% I just bought and never read

IIRC I got a few good deals.. Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy Trilogy (of 4) for £5 IIRC. Also a series of 5-6 ancient Roman murder mysteries that were fun to read on holidays.

They are if you're strategic about buying them. Amazon has loads at 99p all the time and Kindle Unlimited. And even without that it's cheaper for new hardbacks most of the time.

For me it’s about not wanting to lug hardbacks around in my backpack/s hardback landing on my nose in bed, but always being very keen to read new releases.

Yeah that, plus I literally do not have any more room in my house for physical books (my wife being a literature professor...)

It’s one of the reasons I moved house a few years ago. I needed more shelf space!

My experience as a English teacher is - students who are very big readers do both, while infrequent readers are picking something up in the school library or reading physical books in a series bought by parents. Just the logistics of a book a day (very possible for quick readers) leads to ebooks

I have a paperwhite kindle and it’s so easy to read on it. I subscribe to bookbub daily email of kindle bargains so get plenty of 99p deals. My bookclub is a 99p deal one for the most part. Real books are read and given to others or donated to Oxfam otherwise they would be lurking everywhere.

...also ebooks from the regular library are part of their diet. Obviously the more price sensitive they are, the more important school and library provision is

My weakness is photobooks, which really don't work in non-physical form. Tried a Magnum ipad edition once and it was a nope. We have a one-in-one-out policy now, which definitely makes me more selective.

I am sure I have seen a partially blank wall next to you when you are talking on camera...

Literally every available wall space covered plus piles everywhere...

I’m v fond of having the odd purge, but harder when there’s a “crap/might need to cite” bit of the quadrant to service.

The carpenter was rather baffled when he wanted to talk installing shelves measured in metres and I was measuring in years.

it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others

Space above the door, surely?

Every so often I will donate/chuck some books or comics because the space is getting too cramped - and then that space fills. And that's when I also have the ebooks because I'm one of those rank sickos that does both

Hardbacks are a pain in general; too big, heavy and expensive.

Yes but don’t use Amazon … they don’t pay their people or their taxes

We live in an imperfect world. As long as authors I want to read have their books on Amazon I don’t see much alternative to Kindle books (though I do advocate using local libraries when possible, as they are wonderful).

Exactly, we have all have the ability to micro-vote on the type of society we want to live in everytime we buy something. Easy to use alternatives to Amazon for most things

Ok but that's why you're paying more not because of ebooks per se.

I prefer to pay more rather than support Amazon. I do a lot of shopping online but I never use Amazon.

Yea not only is this my main way of buying kindle books but sometimes if I've got the hardback of something (Failed State for example) I'll still get the kindle version for 99p because it's easier to carry around

Probably 50% of my reading is on the Kindle iPad app (mostly cause it's nice for reading in bed as you can have black background/beige text, and no need to have a lamp on to read a normal book) but a standalone Kindle doesn't seem worth it IMO and just something else to remember to keep charged 😂

Yeah, I could not handle charging another device. As this point I would pay for someone to turn our flat into a wireless charging coil

See this is the main reason I haven't bought an iPad since my last one died, I like having dedicated things for dedicated purposes but it does mean you end up with a lot of things!

E-ink display devices tend to last for considerable periods of time because the battery is only used for the back light and to change the page. They are much nicer to read on than mobile/tablet screens.

Yeah, one of my most common uses for my Kindle is when I want to read a new release without risking the integrity of my spine.

They are cheaper for Comics and Warhammer books

Yeah I mostly read ebooks these days because a) I am hyperlexic, we already have so many physical books and my partner does not wish us to perish in a book avalanche b) joint issues mean it's a lot less painful. (Should get an ereader again rather than the app as i better for eyestrain stuff)

I have gone almost entirely to Kindle because our house is full (and our local libraries are not good). It's also easier to carry around and to read with one hand, when standing on the tram, eating etc.

Yeah, hardbacks are simply unpleasant to read for me.

I spent a couple of months chugging through Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire on the tube. I can only imagine the size of brick it would be in paperback. And as a giant, sprawling analysis of the American civil war, to be able to long press anyone’s name to remember who they were was a god send.

My take on why younger people (I do know some) prefer physical over digital is a) it’s a status symbol and b) it’s a conversation starter. “Oh, is that the new X book by Y?” vs. “Oh, is that a Kindle? And tell me, on that Kindle, do you have a preferred genre? And within that genre…”

Apparently has been a gently mocking trend on TikTok about boys 'perfomatively reading' books to impress girls.

That is not something that has started with social media...

Yes - I realised recently that for 20 years I have been saying “Persuasion” was my favourite Austen novel, to impress a girl that I hadn’t just read the ones that were made into 90s adaptations of one kind or another, and I don’t actually know what the real answer is.

Persuasion was made into a BBC film in about 1995/1996? With Ciaran Hinds. Sam West was n it too. Love him. It was reshown on BBC last month ish. Still on iPlayer. The film is *fabulous*. It's my favourite Austen book too.

I did actually read the Book of Laughter & Forgetting when I was a teenage boy for no reason other than to impress a girl

No but has been a big trend there sometime in last cpl of months...

And pirate ebooks are much easier to access/download

Although see @lsepress.bsky.social (for example) which have free open access ebooks - including the rather good Conflict, War and Revolution- part of a growing trend in academic publishing. This enables a wide readership for otherwise esoteric books that are too expensive for ordinary students …

Love niche physical academic books though. "This book is 500€ but it's only ever printed in 2000 copies worldwide. Everyone who owns it is member of a club"

Were they ever? Remember being astonished at the lack of discount vs actual books.