Ask PG: Do you still own books?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6302687

by graeme • 13 years ago

18 31 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I read "Stuff" recently. I've been steadily shedding possessions, and am happier for it.

Books were the notable exception in your essay. They're my exception too.

Since you wrote the essay, many have switched to e-books. Did you? If you did switch, why did you?

http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html

graeme• 13 years ago

Anyone else feel free to comment, especially if you were a paper book lover but switched.

LoganCale2• 13 years ago

I exclusively read ebooks now, but I still like some paper books as well. So now I just collect ones in print that I really like.

andy_adams• 13 years ago

I mow my lawn with a manual push mower, I don't own a smartphone and I still prefer paper books. Our society is moving towards a constantly-connected life, but I'll go out on a limb and say it's good for the soul to get away from electronics completely every so often. That's why I'll (probably) never give up paper books.

LoganCale2• 13 years ago

I disagree. I think it's good to get away from being constantly connected all the time, but that doesn't inherently exclude ebooks. Ebooks are just a convenience for me, and I can take my entire book collection everywhere with me on my Kindle, with tremendous battery life, and a built in light so I can read at night.

adamnemecek• 13 years ago

I've tried to switch completely to e-books but when the content get technical, I still find paper books a lot easier to read (probably since you can go back and forth easier than with e-books).

joshbert• 13 years ago

The problem is that I like to read a lot. Usually a book per week, so I keep almost everything in eBook form.

As a consequence, my personal approach is to only keep up to 5 physical books at any given time. Basically I buy the book in eBook form and if I like it a lot - like really, really love it, I can order a physical copy. At that point, I should have already made the decision of which one of my 5 physical books is going to get donated to make space for this one.

I hate clutter and my best work is done in focused and clean environments, so that's why I do this.

tjr4• 13 years ago

I've made little headway into ebooks, for a number of reasons: a lot of the books I want to read are not available in electronic form; a lot of the books I want to read I already own paper copies of, and I feel little incentive to buy them again; I find that I usually prefer reading in paper form rather than electronic form, especially for anything longer than a couple of pages or so.

That said, I have recently read several novels on my phone, and found that to be a surprisingly pleasant and effective way to read fiction.

Alas, the recent disclosures have fanned the flames of personal privacy and free software idealism in my thinking, reducing what little fondness I had grown for ebooks.

brador2• 13 years ago

Ebooks and privacy? I'm not seeing the link, explain?

tjr4• 13 years ago

Things like:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230487030457749...

And more generally, moreso from the free software angle:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/the-danger-of-ebooks.html

Of course, there are suppliers of ebooks besides Amazon, or besides Apple, who do not infringe upon at least most such concerns.

chiph3• 13 years ago

If the government can monitor your book purchases, you don't get the protection that a good librarian can give you against PATRIOT Act intrusions.

nicklovescode• 13 years ago

Not really. Traveling for the last few months my kindle has been a godsend. No desire now that I'm back to get the physical alternative.

Zigurd• 13 years ago

One problem with programming books is that code listings are not well formatted. Paging through a code listing on paper is not ideal. But it is usually even less ideal paging through a listing in an e-book format.

E-books should be better than print. They should have at least scrolling code, syntax coloring, and and updates straight out of repos.

stretchpants• 13 years ago

I have donated 90% of my shelves to the library replacing them with digital versions. The only books I'm keeping are first editions, rarities, art or photography books. I like the notion of paper books, had 5 large bookshelves full, but I hate moving with them and the Kindle/iPad setup is really quite nice.

chiph3• 13 years ago

I gave all my books to Goodwill last year -- a lifetime of collected & curated sci-fi & fantasy paperbacks, plus some antique tech titles (the "Be Book" was in the pile) and went digital.

I have maybe 20-25 books now. Nearly all of them are technical titles, because the typical reader device isn't large enough to display their diagrams/charts (Amazon doesn't sell the 10" Kindle any more, and iPad-like devices don't have the battery life for a reader)

I do miss the possibility of re-reading the titles that never made it to digital (muddy copyright ownership, lack of interest on the part of the publisher), but I'm happy that perhaps someone browsing through Goodwill might pick it up and enjoy it too.

lutusp• 13 years ago

I gave all my books to Goodwill last year ...

Why not a local library? Same tax advantage, but a much higher chance that the books will get into the hands of readers at no cost.

I mean, assuming lending libraries even exist any more -- I haven't checked. :)

tjr4• 13 years ago

Looking to discard a bunch of paper books a few years ago, I discovered that local libraries often do not particularly want donations of books, and if they do, they have particular requirements of what they might want. E.g., if they accept anything at all, they might accept a novel in good condition, but probably not a first edition of "Just Java".

chiph3• 13 years ago

I found the local libraries to be disappointing (Raleigh, Charlotte, Austin) in that they focus on romance and children's books. They have no interest in older sci-fi paperbacks, and certainly not in acquiring 4 cubic yards of them.

In tech towns like Raleigh, Austin, the Bay Area, I would think there'd be a market for a sci-fi/fantasy specific lending library, but I don't know if it'd pay to run it as a business.

ejdyksen• 13 years ago

Amazon did stop selling the Kindle DX, but they have since resumed selling it:

http://amzn.com/B002GYWHSQ

kcent• 13 years ago

I used to be a lover of Fantasy Paperbacks ... but had to get rid of most of them when my husband and I sold everything to move to SV. Since then I now keep 90% of my books digital, which I fought against at the time, but appreciate it now! My husband had an even harder time with clearing out RPG hardcovers.

Between us I think we kept about a dozen books; autographed copies of things or gems that we can't get in digital, but that's it.

Programming books we long since switched to digital - those giant tomes were not only a huge waste of space but went out of date way too soon. Yay for O'Reilly.

unimpressive2• 13 years ago

I buy most of my books from thrift stores, the major advantage of this is that I can spend less money, get things that may never be published electronically or that I didn't know I wanted, and don't have to make any record anywhere of what books I own. (On the receipt the purchases are charged in generic categories as opposed to specific titles. Even if I were paying with a credit card you wouldn't know what I have.)

With that in mind the library of books I would even want to buy electronically is limited. A further limitation of e-books is that they often come with DRM. E-books that I've seen are sequential access, paper books are random access. Search helps bridge the gap here. (Paper books will never have search, and it's arguably a more useful feature than random access. Especially if your E-reader software supports bookmarks.) The major advantage of an E-book is that it takes up basically no space. Considering the flexible media potential of electronic computers, that's sort of disappointing.

foobarbazqux• 13 years ago

Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back.

There's nothing fundamental stopping e-books from being random access, type in the page number and there you are. Then again, e-books can sometimes lose page numbers altogether.

e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book.

Just some more pros and cons I thought of.

unimpressive2• 13 years ago

Paper books have search in three forms: flipping quickly to scan for information, a chapter index, and a concept index in the back.

An E-book probably has the last two as well. These are almost ineffectual compared to direct word search.

e-books don't come with DRM or a record of purchases if you torrent them or get them from Gutenberg, whereas you cannot conveniently steal a paper book.

Sure, but if you do buy a paper book at least you can sell it. You will never be able to recoup any of the money in your ebook library.

login1234• 13 years ago

I own lots of books. I still buy books. I prefer to read books. e-readers have never won my heart.

If I were still in university I would maybe preferred those text books all be in digital form so I can carry less. However, that was long-ish ago.

still have all my old programming books and find it a lot easier to flip back to things.

30 yrs old; don't care for e-readers.

hashtree• 13 years ago

Avid physical book reader, particularly for anything professionally related. For me, there is no substitute for a physical book. They are extremely durable, inexpensive, reliable, allow me to write in them (e.g. corrections and ideas), highlight in different colors, can be set on a book holder next to me for reference while coding, be easily shared, be easily gifted, can have several open at once for reference, last longer than I have been alive, etc. There is a beauty in their simplicity and barebones functionality.

TL;DR Give me physical books or give me death.

JeremyMorgan• 13 years ago

For tech books, it's all Kindle for me. But reading for pleasure I still like the pulp. Some of my most favorite books I've ever read were found in some indie bookstore, antique store or garage sale. Hard to replace that.

nogoodnik• 13 years ago

Almost all of my books are on paper. I don't mind the space they're taking (six or so bookshelves throughout the house), and I'm past the stage of my life where I moved every other year, so there's no real incentive to get rid of them. They look good, are easy to take care of, and every so often I'll find myself with a few hours of free time and enjoy reading -- or rereading -- them. They are not clutter.

If my kids share my interests, they'll be happy I kept them (discovering my dad's stash of 1970s _Scientific American_ was a high point of my youth), and if not, they'll get rid of them when I'm gone. No worries.

Most of my books are non-fiction. I read a lot of fiction, but tend to use the library for that, except for a few authors I know I'll want to read more than once.

I've got nothing against ebooks (provided they have no DRM) but I guess I just don't need them.

mark_l_watson• 13 years ago

I have been trying to get rid of 'physical stuff' also. I still buy about 10% of my technical books in paper form (usually an eBook pBook combo), but I really prefer having everything in eBook form. Many eBooks are provided in PDF, iPad, and Kindle formats. I make permanent backups of the PDF versions in case the publisher can not provide fresh copies in the future.

For fun reading the local library is a good source of pBooks (and movies on DVD, audio books, etc.)

My wife and I have been talking about living for months at a time in different areas of the world, for fun and eduction. That will require at least being able to live for several months at a time without a lot of stuff.

ekm2• 13 years ago

Math books are the hardest for me to read online,so I have hard copies.A pile of them.

danial• 13 years ago

I have a friend who has a lot of books and loves to loan them to people who are interested. I love going to his place because I usually bring back a few and we almost always end up talking about ideas in those books rather than discussing the latest material possessions we have acquired.

Ask PG: Do you still own books?

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