I’m with you. I love holding a hardback book in my hands. I don’t have to worry about creases in the spine. Hardbacks usually have acid free paper that won’t turn brown and disintegrate in twenty years. They are expensive.

Mostly, I buy paperbacks because they are available. I hold them very carefully so as not to crease the spines. Unlike my hardbacks, I take a chance reading them while soaking in the tub. In fifteen years I only dropped one. I fell asleep. It wasn’t a riveting book.

I do listen to a lot of audio books on my iPod and some as mp3′s or CD’s. I listen to books mostly in the car. When I was teaching, I commuted at least four hours a day and could listen to an audio book in about three days. Now, it takes longer.

Reading a paperback usually takes me a couple of days. I reread books all the time. I reread my own favorites and often books discussed on review websites and blogs to refresh my memory and understand about what people are talking.

I don’t anticipate getting an e-reader anytime soon even though so many people really like them and how little space they take. I love looking at my library shelves. On a recent blog, someone spoke about her shelf of Christmas anthologies she looks to every year. So, I went through mine and extracted eight to read or partially read in the next month. I love being able to do that.

As Cicero said, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
I love having them in nearly every room in the house.

Rike, you sounded like you were describing my bookshelf exactly! For example, I have three Moning paperbacks and one hardback followed by three C.S. Harris paperbacks and two hardbacks.

It’s funny this topic came up b/c I was recently contemplating prospective hardback releases. I’m seriously on the fence over SEP’s latest since I didn’t care for the last one and I don’t know Ted Beaudine from Adam b/c I didn’t read those other books that have him as a character. And Moning’s last Fever entry is coming so long after the last one that I can’t drum up enough enthusiasm to shell out big bucks for a hardback. The hardback dilemma for me is more about price for quality than space, though.

R Smith…nope, makes perfect sense to me. But than again, I’m kind of a book nut too, so maybe my opinion shouldn’t count for too much. Happy reading!!

I always download a copy of my books to my computer and they are backed up on a flash drive. They can remove them from my machine/app when I sync to the app, but I’ll still have my own copy and can reload it via Adobe/Calibre or read it using these programs on the computer. Which I believe is also how they remove library books, but I haven’t tried to use it that way yet so I’m not certain.

I do, periodically purge my bookshelves, and since I’m usually giving the books to a relative or the local library, I feel no guilt over that. I have found that my only dilemma between the hardcover/paperback/e-book debate comes when I find a new author. If it’s a book I really love, than my issue is, do I buy the hardcover/paperback even though I have the book on my Kindle? Again, that LOVES books thing comes out in me. I don’t do library because I forget to take them back, and the whole fine thing is embarrassing.

I’m just glad I live in an age where I can debate over what book format I want, and being a book-nut can choose all of ‘em if I want WooHoo!!!

MarianneM, I agree with Lynne that you are misinformed about the Kindle. I would never attempt to talk anybody into an eReader who isn’t open to it, but a Kindle does not weigh more than a paperback. To go even further, I like the fact that it is held in one hand, unlike a book that requires two. I find it more comfortable. We all well remember the Orwell incident, but Amazon was caught between a rock and a hard place. The book was illegally sold by a publisher who didn’t have the right to it, so refunding money and removing it was the only way to go. What was unconscionable was the publisher selling the book, not Amazon righting the wrong.