[Discussion] Thoughts on owning books
Aug. 6th, 2024 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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booknookCrossposted to my journal.
I've always liked books as objects. I'd like to be a person who owns books, which is distict from being a person who reads books. I haven't been able to be as much of a person who owns books as I would have wished to, both because my income used to be very small and because that very small income meant having small living quarters. No space for multiple bookshelves; no money for buying the bookshelves; no money for buying the books.
Things have since changed. While I don't have enough space to have very many bookshelves, nor the money to fill very many bookshelves, I am solidly middle class in terms of income these days, and that does mean an increased book budget. Ebooks help, too. They are cheaper and take up less space, and while they don't give me the same joy that physical books do, they are still books.
The thing is, I'm also a person who doesn't like to own things they don't use. I don't want to have something just to have it, and that includes books both physical and electronic. "If I'm not reading those books, why do I have them?" asks the minimalist me, while the part of me that likes owning nice things sputters, "But, books!"
But what does it mean to read books? What does it mean to have use of them? It's not quite as simple as just reading them right now, or rereading them regularly. Case in point: Captive Prince.
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat is one of the first ebooks I ever bought. Calibre says the date I added it to my library is October 24, 2015, though I must have actually bought it some time before that, probably in 2014. For some reason, I didn't feel like reading it, and I kept not feeling like reading it until spring 2024, when I felt like reading something that would be a bit grittier than what I'd been reading but that would still give me my romance fix. Captive Prince, with its laundry list of content warnings, seemed like a good fit, and it was. I read the whole trilogy in two days. That's how much I loved it.
If I had bought a physical copy of Captive Prince, would I have culled it at some point, thinking I was never going to read it? Would I have felt that ten years is surely too long for a book to take up valuable bookshelf space? If I had, I wouldn't have had it on hand when I finally was in the mood for it, and that would have been a shame.
I buy most of my novels in ebook form these days, so I rarely need to worry about having to buy a new release immediately for fear of its going out of print. And yet, it isn't difficult to imagine ebooks suddenly being unavailable either, especially when published by small publishers or the authors themselves. It isn't even difficult to imagine an ebook being removed because pressure has been brought to bear on the publisher or the author to do so for one reason or another. At that point, piracy becomes the only option, since getting a second-hand copy of an ebook-only release is impossible.
I indicated that this post was a discussion post. I don't know what I'm discussing, precisely, so if you have thoughts on the vaguely defined topic of "owning books", I'd love to hear them. If I have any conclusions I've come to here, it's this: I just really love books.
I've always liked books as objects. I'd like to be a person who owns books, which is distict from being a person who reads books. I haven't been able to be as much of a person who owns books as I would have wished to, both because my income used to be very small and because that very small income meant having small living quarters. No space for multiple bookshelves; no money for buying the bookshelves; no money for buying the books.
Things have since changed. While I don't have enough space to have very many bookshelves, nor the money to fill very many bookshelves, I am solidly middle class in terms of income these days, and that does mean an increased book budget. Ebooks help, too. They are cheaper and take up less space, and while they don't give me the same joy that physical books do, they are still books.
The thing is, I'm also a person who doesn't like to own things they don't use. I don't want to have something just to have it, and that includes books both physical and electronic. "If I'm not reading those books, why do I have them?" asks the minimalist me, while the part of me that likes owning nice things sputters, "But, books!"
But what does it mean to read books? What does it mean to have use of them? It's not quite as simple as just reading them right now, or rereading them regularly. Case in point: Captive Prince.
Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat is one of the first ebooks I ever bought. Calibre says the date I added it to my library is October 24, 2015, though I must have actually bought it some time before that, probably in 2014. For some reason, I didn't feel like reading it, and I kept not feeling like reading it until spring 2024, when I felt like reading something that would be a bit grittier than what I'd been reading but that would still give me my romance fix. Captive Prince, with its laundry list of content warnings, seemed like a good fit, and it was. I read the whole trilogy in two days. That's how much I loved it.
If I had bought a physical copy of Captive Prince, would I have culled it at some point, thinking I was never going to read it? Would I have felt that ten years is surely too long for a book to take up valuable bookshelf space? If I had, I wouldn't have had it on hand when I finally was in the mood for it, and that would have been a shame.
I buy most of my novels in ebook form these days, so I rarely need to worry about having to buy a new release immediately for fear of its going out of print. And yet, it isn't difficult to imagine ebooks suddenly being unavailable either, especially when published by small publishers or the authors themselves. It isn't even difficult to imagine an ebook being removed because pressure has been brought to bear on the publisher or the author to do so for one reason or another. At that point, piracy becomes the only option, since getting a second-hand copy of an ebook-only release is impossible.
I indicated that this post was a discussion post. I don't know what I'm discussing, precisely, so if you have thoughts on the vaguely defined topic of "owning books", I'd love to hear them. If I have any conclusions I've come to here, it's this: I just really love books.
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Date: 2024-08-06 07:30 pm (UTC)As for physical books, I do really like to own them, and I especially like to very-slowly be in the process of cataloguing them with little barcode stickers so I can have them all up on a tinycat library that I can search through.
That is very nice ♡ I’m currently buying a lot of danmei (baihe published here when?), and already have some light novels, that I actually have no intertwined of reading right now or in the foreseeable future but want to have. Some of them I do think I might want to read later. Some possibly not. One series I bought, read the end to double-check the ending was okay and misunderstood, decided not to read the series but kept them anyway because I liked the covers, and then only recently in a conversation realized I was wrong about the ending so they’re back on the reading list. Not quite, but a bit like the captive prince situation.
Anyway, I don’t know what I added or didn’t add to the conservation, but it was nice to reflect on it a bit.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:41 pm (UTC)I hadn't thought about it either before writing this post! It just hit me mid-writing that actually, that's a valid concern.
I have a deep hatred of DRM, which is why I break the DRM in all the ebooks I buy. Fuck the legality of it. I bought the book -- I refuse to think of it as buying access to the book, especially given that ebook stores do their very best to obfuscate that issue -- and so I want to read it on any device I choose.
ETA: DRM actually has implications beyond just the books themselves. It's the reason I had to switch from Linux back to Windows in, well, 2015 apparently. I couldn't get Adobe Digital Editions to work in Linux, not even in a Windows emulator, and I needed it to be able to download DRM-protected epubs to my computer without having to first route them through my ereader or a mobile device. I could break the DRM and open the epub in Linux, sure, but I needed ADE to get the epub file itself. So, as long as ebooks use DRM and as long as Adobe refuses to make a Linux version of ADE (which means forever), I'm stuck with Windows.
Anyway, I don’t know what I added or didn’t add to the conservation, but it was nice to reflect on it a bit.
Reflection is definitely what I was doing with this post, too. I didn't have any specific thing I wanted to argue or anything I wanted opinions on. I just had some vague thoughts that I thought other bookish people might connect with, and I was right!
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Date: 2024-08-06 07:51 pm (UTC)I've culled physical books partly for space reasons but partly also for "if I haven't touched this in eight years, I'm unlikely to suddenly change my mind" reasons. I hang onto nonfiction longer because it's generally something I own for work research reasons and those books also tend to be academic press, expensive, and murderously expensive/hard to find once I let go. Something like a popular fiction release is more likely to be re-obtainable (buying it, library, borrowing from a friend). Specialty book on traditional Korean quilting printed in S Korea and now out of print, not so much.
Ebooks I sometimes cull when I'm pretty sure I am no longer going to use them or (again) they can reasonably be obtained again in the future; fortunately, it's usually not HD space constraints.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 09:34 pm (UTC)So it's not just you.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:50 pm (UTC)Specialty book on traditional Korean quilting printed in S Korea and now out of print, not so much.
Ahaha, omg.
I bought the novel Golden Terrace when its official English translation was published. It's danmei, from a small published, available only as a physical copy. It was really hard to buy outside North America, even soon after its release. There's no way I'll ever get rid of it, after all the trouble I went to getting it.
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Date: 2024-08-06 08:14 pm (UTC)I finally got a Kindle a while back because I just ran out of space for physical books. I've culled so many, but just never made a dent in anything :( (I say, having just picked 11 physical books from a second-hand bookstore. But look, they're at least those small mass-market paperbacks!) But I read so many indie mm romances that are only available on Amazon, so it was physical or Kindle, and eventually, the draw of books overcame me.
I do feel kind of 'ugh' about it though, because to my understanding I shouldn't be surprised if Amazon ever goes 'license expired' or something about the books. With things like Smashwords, I at least don't have that worry, because I've got the files downloaded and can move them where I please.
I am also definitely the kind of person who is happy surrounded by books without necessarily needing to read them. I must have hundreds of books I've never read (I blame Stuff Your Kindle---now that I've got one, I picked up everything mm without even bothering to figure out if it was something I'm interested in because maybe one day the mood will strike, you know.) But then I also have plenty of physics books I haven't read yet either but aren't willing to part with because I'm interested in them, I'm just not in the mood right now.
I do very much read based on mood; when I read without having the mood for it, it goes excruciatingly slowly---which is for example the point I'm at with The Martian by Andy Weir right now. I'm very interested in it, I loved the movie, but the mood isn't quite there so I can only make myself read it a bit at a time. Sigh.
(Currently I'm in a very whumpy mood, so maybe I should pick up Captive Prince. I got halfway through it years ago but never finished it...)
But yeah, I just really love books.
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Date: 2024-08-06 10:35 pm (UTC)https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2009/08/02/peninsula-student-sues-amazon-over-e-book-deletion/
It was George Orwell's 1984, for extra irony.
I buy books for Kindle but it's with the understanding that they may go poof at any time. OTOH I read so slowly these days, the physical books I have will keep me busy unless the zombies eat me first.
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Date: 2024-08-06 11:49 pm (UTC)I have learned to keep a diverse range of genres on my bookshelf for that reason. I ended up going down to only 5 books in my to be read pile but they were the same genre I wasn't in the mood to read.
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Date: 2024-08-07 01:02 pm (UTC)Come to the dark side. We have, er, whips?
It's such a bummer when something is only available on Amazon. I end up just not reading whatever that is, but if I read a lot of a genre that is oftern only available there, I'd probably have to at least put up with a Kindle app. This whole situation Amazon has created sucks. >_<
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Date: 2024-08-06 08:21 pm (UTC)Teen me finally starting downloading shit and had to confront the reality that not everything I want can be fit into my storage. Her solution then was loading up flashdrives lmao. Now I keep everything directly on my devices and I won't lie I miss having external storage.
I am naturally more of a minimalist anyway so clearing stuff out while keeping a remaining few always feels good to me, it makes me genuinely calm, but I also know I have to be careful considering what to throw away because sometimes it isn't that I'll never get around to the book because it disinterests me, but the illness inside my brain make it hard to feel ready to sit down and read. So in that sense it's difficult. It just takes some time to mull over, really, and that's the tortorous part for me lol. I cannot stand being patient.
One thing that does piss me off about the digital age is that bigwigs own everything and can take away stuff you downloaded in a blink of an eye and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's a cold take, lol.
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Date: 2024-08-07 01:09 pm (UTC)I don't know that I'd call it a cold take. More like a realistic take. Especially given that it has happened and does keep happening, both in a collective sense when a store closes down (someone mentioned Microsoft books elsethread here) or is bought by another company (Crunchyroll buying Funimation) and individually (Amazon deleting customers' libraries, also mentioned elsethread here).
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Date: 2024-08-06 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-07 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 09:37 pm (UTC)As for OWNING books (as opposed to buying them), for me it's an issue of physical space. Ebooks once I purchase them I'll download the file, if it's DRM-free, so I can back it up. For Kindle ebooks, they mostly just existing in my account until I want to read them and download them. I own them...but they're kind of ephemeral in that it's easy for me to forget I own them. It also annoys me, sometimes, that I can't clean up and organize my Kindle library the way I can my physical library (or even my DRM-free ebooks in Calibre), but eh.
Once I read books, the "should I own this?" question comes in. For physical books, I am constantly trying to reduce the physical space they take up, so if I don't think I'll read anything again, I'll give it away. For ebooks, I care less: it doesn't take up physical space and having many doesn't impair my ability to find anything, so it can hang out in my computer or on my kindle account however long it likes. As a result, I own many more read, terrible ebooks than I do read, terrible hardcopy books.
A lot of my PURCHASING practices, though, have changed over the years. Purchasing in hard copy used to be the only option, and I'd buy books just so I had the option of reading them. This resulted in...well...me now owning a lot of books that I've had for around 10 years at least, because I still want to read them but just haven't gotten around to it. There's always new books to read out there, after all. Ebook lending from my library is also now so convenient, I find that substitutes nicely for me purchasing things. Decades of experience of my own reading habits has shown me that I do not often re-read books. So, easy borrowing of a digital book is perfectly fine for me: read it, return it, all done.
So really, though I like books and read a lot of them, if I actually caught up on my reading piles...I probably would actually own relatively few physical books.
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Date: 2024-08-06 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2024-08-06 11:44 pm (UTC)Read books: I use to keep anything I enjoyed reading but due to space limitations and a couple of moves I have done a major culling and now keep only very favourite authors and books I love to re-read parts of.
Unread books: I use to buy a lot more books then I do now. It's come down to a combination of higher book prices and the decrease of the mass market paperback format. I'm much less willing to buy a trade paperback from an unknown author than I would for a mass market paperback. I use Amazon to keep a wishlist and get books from my local library. I will still buy favourite authors or the occasional splurge close to my birthday or Christmas.
I will go through and purge some of the unread books but I usually skim through them first to see if I might still be interested in it.
One big lesson I learned after getting my Unread pile down to less than 5 books was to always make sure I have a broad range of different genres in my pile. Because I like to move from romance to action/adventure to supernatural depending on my mood. Having one genre meant I was never in the mood to read one of those 5 books. So a big unread pile of books can be a good thing.
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Date: 2024-08-07 03:03 am (UTC)I've been doing something similar with my own to-read list for similar reasons. I think it has helped. Though sometimes for me I don't move from one genre to another but between subgenres instead. Similarly, sometimes you just get into a mood for nonfiction after some fiction (and vice versa). Though it is interesting you say that you enjoy a big read pile, for me I feel so stressed if I have tons of books because I worry I won't be able to get to all of them as fast as I'd like to.
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Date: 2024-08-06 11:47 pm (UTC)Something I've started doing in the past year or so (the first time in my life I've made over what is considered "just getting by" in my area) is to buy print copies of ebooks I read and particularly enjoyed. I get 90% of my ebooks from the library but I worry about losing access when files types become obsolete or ebook stores go out of business and you lose your whole library. Some ebooks are available DRM free but not all (not even the majority, I think?) and that doesn't solve the obsolescence problem. (I'm not sure of the legality of reformatting your DRM-free .mobi files to .epub, e.g.)
… on the other hand, something else I've been doing is occasionally buying ebook copies of print books I own but don't want to stuff in my suitcase and haul overseas with me, either because they're too heavy (most of my manga collection) or valuable/out of print (some of my manga collection) and they're safer at my mom's house than in earthquake country.
There are some books I just prefer in print, too. I mostly write picture books and ebooks are not the same reading experience so I am slowly but surely building a collection of my favorites, both as a child reader and as an adult librarian/author. Most of my Judaica collection is in print. (I use my iPad for ereading on Shabbat when I have to but I prefer to read paper books.) Some books are so tied up in the physical experience of the book as an object that reading an ebook version feels… wrong, somehow. I wish I'd dug up my childhood copy of Freak the Mighty while I was home this summer; I was struck by a desire to reread it but I'd really want to read my copy. My library has an ebook on Libby and the school where I work has a print edition but it's not the same trim size and paper type as my copy and it's not my book. There's nothing special about my book (it's not signed or a first printing or anything) except that I read it 100 times when I was a kid.
I really miss that sometimes, too. There are some books that my first encounter with the text was digital and it's just not the same.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:23 pm (UTC)That whole DRM thing just makes me mad. I think it's unethical to sell only access to books (and other media), especially when the stores make a point of obfuscating the issue. After all, every store I've ever used has a "buy this book" button rather than a "license this book" button. It's deliberate, and it's wrong.
Therefore, I download every single ebook I buy and break the DRM on it regardless of the legality of doing so. It's my book, ethically speaking, and I refuse for it to be held hostage by some corporation.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:15 am (UTC)but also i will say the majority of the books i own i have for research, so not only am i referring back to them quite often but i also like being able to access things quickly via my ridiculous system of color-coded page flags, or having notes jotted down, etc. when it comes to books i'm reading for non-work-related reasons, it's purely personal preference: i just like having a physical book to hold lol.
however, there's also the aspect that, like others have pointed out, i just don't trust companies like Amazon not to just pull digital versions with no notice. or try to charge extra for continued access to them. :/
the flipside of this is that, back at the start of the pandemic, i lost around 60% of the books i owned due to a flood, so i also know how easy it is to lose physical copies too -_-
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Date: 2024-08-07 02:02 am (UTC)Beyond space issues and flood issues, however, I'm discovering as I get older that the ebook ability to change font size and sometimes straight-up change the font for readability reasons is extremely helpful! But research books, especially for things like art or military history, are genuinely more useful to me in dead tree format. (I write in my books, sorry!) And it's usually so much faster to flip through in physical format.
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Date: 2024-08-07 02:12 am (UTC)I love my kindle. I love having stuff there and I don't need to worry about move them or dusting them. But, if I really love a book I get a paper copy. I am old enough that I've dealt with a lot of format obsolescence problems. I also worry about companies complying in advance to political pressure. Automatic updates, writers changing words, etc, also worries me. Some writers are open about correcting typos and other updates, but I think there are also more nefarious changes at times.
I really, really love my ebooks but I am aware that buying so much in ebooks could wind up biting me in the butt.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:34 pm (UTC)Some writers are open about correcting typos and other updates, but I think there are also more nefarious changes at times.
Yes! Though that is admittedly also something of a concern in physical books as well. See: Georgette Heyer's estate removing the anti-semitism in The Grand Sophy and not indicating that they'd done so.
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Date: 2024-08-07 07:00 am (UTC)Books glorious books!
As a child my reprieve and escape was in books, and also my father worked for a publisher so books represented his (capricious) love. I've been as invested in owning books as in clothes or other necesssities, and sometimes I just stand by my bookcase and pull out books, read a few pages, put them back, rinse and repeat.
I also admit I am not a minimalist and lost more than one friend in what could be called the Minimalism Wars just before the pandemic. A lot of people want to condemn those who like owning things as hoarders, but I think there's a difference between books on shelves and piles of trash, isn't there?
I also love the physical forms of books. Before my eyesight got bad I collected small and miniature books. I'm actually about to post a shelfie of a small bookcase I just bought, filled with small but not miniature books. I love the tiny details of tiny books, they're so charming!
I should read more ebooks, especially considering my declining eyesight. Check in with me again in a few years on that one. :)
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Date: 2024-08-07 02:22 pm (UTC)Yes! And also between owning many things and hoarding things.
BTW, I've seen so many people misunderstanding Marie Kondo's stance on owning books that these days, my knee-jerk reaction to criticism towards KonMari is, "have they actually read the book?" Poor Marie Kondo, eternally being condemned for saying you should only own 30 books, even though she never said anything of the sort. XD
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Date: 2024-08-08 02:51 am (UTC)I know that J-Novel Club have problems with some of their light novels being taken off by Amazon. I also believe many romance self published authors struggle with their books being removed from Amazon. It makes me feel uncomfortable that Amazon can just decide to kick off books they don't like. Frankly, this is probably a larger issue with how puritan companies are but still.
There are also small presses, what happen to their ebooks if they close?
I love owning books. I'm a mood reader so I love being able to reach for a book and just start reading. I have a Kindle which enables this, but at the same time I feel bad because I'm supporting Amazon. I locked myself in this years ago, and now I can't justify moving over to Kobo (which is still a locked ecosystem). I've been slowly ripping DRM off my ebooks, but last year or two years ago, Amazon made it really difficult to rip DRM off. I'm actually not sure if people managed to find a way around it yet, now I think about it. I just wish there's a good ereader out there that doesn't have a locked ecosystem, but still is easy to buy books for.
I just realized this is mostly complaining about Amazon, sorry. I really do hate their major role in books though.
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Date: 2024-08-08 12:35 pm (UTC)I do want to point out that Kobo isn't actually a locked ecosystem. You can buy books from non-Kobo stores and read them on your Kobo ereader just fine. You do have to cycle the books through your computer first, because browsing the web on an e-ink device is just too clunky to be practical for more than very occasional use. I don't think there's any need to de-DRM the files, either, though I have to admit I'm not 100% sure, since I de-DRM all my ebooks right away. I just can't think why you would have to do it to be able to read them. You just need to first download the epub file with Adobe Digital Editions, if it is a DRM-protected file, and then move it to your Kobo ereader.
You can also read epubs bought from the Kobo store on your computer, and I expect any device that can read epubs would also read them just fine.
None of that helps with being locked into the Kindle ecosystem, of course. :/
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Date: 2024-08-08 05:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-08 12:41 pm (UTC)I have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that reading an ebook doesn't cause the same kind of focused, relaxed state that reading physical books do. Something something focus and calmness something something. I can't remember exactly what it was about, but it kind of makes sense. Reading a physical book is also a tactile experience, and I can easily believe that would contribute to activating the autonomic nervous system.
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Date: 2024-08-09 01:56 pm (UTC)In recent years, I've started collecting physical books in earnest, because of realising how quickly they can disappear. For example, I never would have expected something as big as the Vorkosigan series to go out of print in hardcopy, but here we are.
My local libraries are also very severe with culling old books, though I know it's to free up shelf space for new acquisitions. When I was young, I could walk into any library and read the whole backlist of Discworld novels. Now I'd be lucky to find a few.
So these days, anything I want to reread, I pretty much have to make sure I own.
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Date: 2024-08-09 03:46 pm (UTC)Same applies to ebooks. I've been surprised just how quickly my local library's ebook licenses seem to expire. Luckily, English-language ebooks are generally affordable and take up next to no space, so I can afford to buy them without unduly straining my budget. That wouldn't work nearly as well for physical books, given that I'd also need to buy a bigger flat in addition to the books. XD
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Date: 2024-08-11 04:42 am (UTC)* use money to buy the ebook if I've read it already and like it and either want to own it or will definitely re-read it, or if I know I'm going to like it and can't wait for the library, or if I want to give money to the author
* use free store credits on ebooks of things I know I like or I have been meaning to read, especially if those credits are about to expire
* "buy" $0 ebooks that look like they'll be interesting, because someday I'll be in that mood (one of my fears is Running Out Of Books And Being Bored, I have raging ADHD that didn't get detected until my 30s because it's Primarily Inattentive type, due to books keeping me from bouncing off the walls and my parents making sure I was generously supplied with books via libraries and Christmas/birthdays; this fear was validated when I was stuck in a plasma donation center hooked up to the machine with an R-rated splatter horror movie on the overhead video screens and an absolutely wretched romance with an anti-choice message, which I had finished while in the donation chair, and I decided to try and re-read it upside-down so I could concentrate on something other than the movie)
* buy the physical copy if I love the book enough to want to have it if there's an extended power outage and I'm reading by battery lantern or candle, or if I love the rest of the series enough, or if I really really want to support the author
* pick up the physical copy free from a free physical books event if I know and love the author, or if I have had the book recommended to me
I'm reluctant to cull things that I haven't read, in case I'd be giving up a treasure. Generally I have a feel for what books I'm going to want to read again.
I don't really consider a 1:1 ebook transfer between friends or friendly acquaintances "piracy", even though ebook sellers would consider it that. If I've acquired an ebook unofficially, if I love it I put it on my list to acquire officially. I wish more authors had a "just give me money" option in their online shops, and I wish that publishers had "support this author" things in their shops.
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Date: 2024-08-13 01:45 pm (UTC)Ouch.
One of the things I love about ebooks is that you can carry your whole library with you and therefore don't need to worry about whether you've brought enough books with you. Perfect when you're travelling (among other occasions).