Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Kindle books or hard copy? What to do??

A few weeks ago I cleaned out and organized our office and one of the major things I did was to purge the bookshelf of books that I have collected but haven't read in years. I finally pared it down so that my books only take up 2 1/4 shelves!!! Can you believe that?? Ever since puberty I am pretty sure I have always had at least a bookshelf full of books. I decided to only keep the books that I am sure I want to reread when the mood strikes me, especially series like Harry Potter or books like Scarlett (the sequel to Gone with the Wind, Ahhmazing!!) So here is the dilemma. I have been reading a lot of books on the ipad Kindle app, and I have started to really like kindle books. It took me awhile to get used to, but now I am all for it. I've had a few books on my mind that I want to purchase, like the Hunger Games trilogy, but I don't know if I want to buy hard copies or the kindle version. I go back and forth! I've never purchased an electronic book, all the ones I have read have been free downloads or library downloads so I feel like if I start buying them, then I feel like I need to buy all of my books that way. I can't decide!

My pros and cons list:

Kindle
Pros:
-Takes up no space to store tons of books
-I can read it without a flashlight (I read mostly at night in bed)
-I can buy books instantly and read them immediately
-Usually costs the same as buying a used book on half.com
-I can take my entire library with me anywhere (like vacation or a waiting room, etc..)

Cons:
-Depends on battery life, if the ipad is not charged I can't read (hurricanes, power outages, etc.. I mean, a woman has to be able to read during an emergency right?)
-I can't take it to the beach or camping or places like that because I wouldn't want the ipad to get damaged
-It would mean that I spend a LOT more time looking at the screen of the ipad (which is saying something because I do that quite a bit already)
-I want to be able to model reading to James and it would just look like mommy playing on the ipad if I were reading them around him. (Weird thing to think about I know, but I do so I am considering it)
-I would miss being able to hold the book and physically turn the pages. I feel like I get pulled into the story more when I read a physical book.
-I love to have things matching, and switching to kindle would either mean having half of my book collection physical and the other half kindle or my OCD would require me to get rid of all of my books and buy the kindle versions. So everything would match. Yeah, I am pretty sure I would do that :)

The matching issue is kind of a big deal. If I weren't so weird, I could just do a little bit of both, say get what version is cheaper every time I want to buy a book. Unfortunately, I think that would drive me crazy. So what do you think? I honestly have no idea. When I was typing the pros, I thought: "Of course, get kindle books dummy! What are you waiting for". Then when I was typing the cons, "Oh no, I don't think this will work". Anyone else create a pros and con list for their book collection? Just me? Okay :)

*Update* I decided to stick with hard copy books for now. I don't buy books often, so I don't think space will be an issue for awhile, but in the end I decided that the look of covers and the feel of the book and being able to read without the eye strain of looking at a screen and without being tied to an electronic device won out.

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