I tried a Kindle Paperwhite for a month and...

[ambient_woolf]

I'm rather unsatisfied. I know now that I should have done more search. True, there are a lot of books on sale but many of them are pulpy and without substance. Only books I bought that I was dying to read were written by Calvino, Bradbury, and O'Connor. The books my online library offers aren't exactly what I'm dying to read, either.

So, I've decided I'm going to return the thing. Somehow I'd neglected used books until now, always preferring new ones. I'm now turning to used books and it's actually shocking how much of a bargain Abe Books is. It's easy to find books in good condition for around $3.50 and thus buying 10 books for around $40 instead of buying new books and getting only 4 books for that price.

I don't know, maybe sometime in the future e-readers will expand so I can read books I *want* to read, but for now I'd rather seek out physical books where I'm guaranteed to find something interesting for cheap.

[MorpheusSandman]

I first bought a Kindle several years back when they were first released and was unsatisfied myself, but now I've come to realize how many classics are available for cheap or free in even well-formatted editions. Most of the stuff on Project Gutenberg(?), eg, is great for e-readers. Yes, there are still a great many books that are unavailable, so it's really about what, exactly, you spend most of your time reading. For me it's poetry and mostly classic novels, most of which are now available via Oxford, Penguin, et al.

[mal4mac]

I keep on glancing at Kindle's in Waterstones when I'm passing, to see if they can start to appeal to me. They never do, the screen always seems a bit shiny compared to paper, and e-ink just doesn't seem as "true" as old ink. Plus there's a good library near me - even cheaper than Abe books!

[Gladys]

I've had a rooted Nook for a year and love it. I can read in the sun.

Coolreader software (also free) allows me to highlight any word and, with a click, lookup the word simultaneously in offline Wiktionary, Wikipedia, WordNet, The Collaborative International Dictionary of English, and elsewhere (all free). I don't need the internet!

For instance, I've almost finished Shakespeare's Coriolanus, free ex Gutenburg. Most of the words I've looked up actually include the quote from Coriolanus, would you believe. I can read Shakespeare with near complete understanding, using the lookup. And I can easily highlight passages of interest.

I enjoy paper books much less now.

[MorpheusSandman]

I keep on glancing at Kindle's in Waterstones when I'm passing, to see if they can start to appeal to me. They never do, the screen always seems a bit shiny compared to paper, and e-ink just doesn't seem as "true" as old ink. Plus there's a good library near me - even cheaper than Abe books!Things like this definitely play a roll as well. Personally, actual ink is harder on my eyes unless I'm in a well-lit room, which isn't always the case. I actually think the best thing about e-readers is that they can be read in darkness, which means I can read outside at night in the summer and actually see better than reading regular print in the daytime. The lack of a decent library near me is also one reason why I love e-readers.

[Vota]

I firmly believe e-readers are the future. I'm attending a community college, and all these late teen/early 20 year old's seem to have either an e-reader, ipad, or the latest smart phone that they can browse the internet and read with. Considering you can put hundreds, or thousands of books for cheap on one of these readers, makes them incredibly diverse and efficient.

I myself won't own one because I'm selfish. I thoroughly enjoy holding an actual book in my hands. I enjoy the lineage and the craft of books. Books can be a work of art to some degree and e-readers simply do not have this. Nearly every book on my shelves has not only unique contents, but it's own individual aesthetic quality about it.

I'm all for e-readers, but I don't plan to own one. I would also argue that well-cared for books probably last longer, being less prone to destruction by being dropped on hard surfaces and not requiring electricity to operate. Books are dying, and the more prevalent e-readers become, the less books stores we will have. It will happen. It happened with music, and it will eventually happen with books. Things change, but I will hold onto my books.

[JBI]

Download Calibre and side-load the thing with as much stuff as you can find. Otherwise don't bother with a kindle.　I do not feel that Amazon should make money off of public domain books, when quite simply it costs them nothing to let people load anything they want onto their kindle.

Either way, the quality of the kindle Hardware is a bit shaky. One little bump on the screen and you're out the cost of the unit.