Do you prefer to read physical books or ebooks? For me, it depends upon the problem you’re solving for. Most of my problems are solved by ebooks.
As an overall experience, I prefer holding an old-fashioned print book in my hands. Hardcover, because they’re easier for my arthritic hands to handle. Decent-sized print, because of my aging eyes, but not large print, because my vision’s not that bad yet.
Physical books take up a lot of space, though. I’m a minimalist who knows we’re going to have to move out of this small apartment eventually. I don’t want more stuff than I absolutely need. Ebooks save space. My personal library takes up no space, rather than at least one whole wall of a room. I’m not going to hurt myself transporting it to a new flat.
Being a native English speaker living in Finland, physical books are also expensive. The library has a decent selection of English-language titles, but it’s limited. In the bookstore they have mainly romances, mysteries, and thrillers by authors I’ve never heard of. This means I need to order books I want from abroad, and shipping can be ridiculously expensive. Ebooks are cheaper, and I can download what I want immediately rather than waiting days or weeks for a physical book to arrive.
The Merry Writer is a writer’s game on Twitter run by Ari Meghlen (@arimeghlen) and Rachel Poli (@RPoli3). Each day there’s a new question, and each month there’s a new theme. In these posts I expand upon the answers that I’ve posted on my Twitter.
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