Me three. Avoided buying a Kindle for years because I was unnerved by the idea of my book running out of batteries. In the three months since I acquired one my reading time has probably increased fivefold. The Kindle is a terrible device in so many ways--frumpy UI, 1980s-ish refresh rate, poor resolution compared to printed material--and yet still manages to be enjoyable to use. Makes me excited about the future of reading devices.
I bought the first kindle and took it on a month long trip to Africa and re-read the Baroque Cycle on it. I jave a a few new Kindles since. I love most the platform aspect of Kindle and I rarely buy novels or computer tech books in any other form.
However I grew up traveling to Powells books and living with physical books. I find that a good physical book has something that the digital version lacks. The physical form is a symbol for my memories of a book. I can simply pick it up and thoughts, themes and so forth come back to me. A quick flip through pulls out my memories.
For deep study I still find that writing in ad underlining a book increases my understanding dramatically. For awhile I composed notes at the computer while I read but this was time consuming and akward.
Digital books are disruptive. As Carr once wrote though, the disruption doesn't mean something isn't lost... often much is. We need to find the right ways to bring as much as that along with us from the physical world into the digital as we can. Perhaps I am too old already, but I am sure I will be one of the last with physical books as well as a continual user of the digital.
It doesn't work for me at least. Part of the value of note taking is to flip through the book quickly and see the notes and then recall the most interesting parts. This seems lost.
