Does anyone still read books?

[Rickf1985]

I have a lot of old books that I simply cannot throw out. There have got to still be people is this world that actually read printed books. These are all old books, as an example I have two huge Mark Twain books. I have many WWII aircraft books from my dad. I also have several books on Hitler that I doubt anyone has interest in but my dad studied him extensively and I think it had something to do with whatever he did in the military. He never told me what that was to the day he passed but I do know that when I was in and I needed to get T1 secret clearance I found out quickly that he also had that clearance.
I gave probably 100 books to a young lady who was starting a library in a depressed area of Philadelphia as a college project, never heard the outcome but I suspect most of those books probably ended up in a dumpster eventually. I do not want that to happen with these. They are old enough to be part of our history and I do not want some Woke idiot saying that is not permissible to read.

[Polymath]

I have many old books too. I am presently reading a compilation of Outdoor life Magazine's best stories. Don't throw them away. Once gone, forever gone. The digital age will disappear. When they say the internet is forever... nuh uh. One EMP and Zisst. Gone.

[waksupi]

I read a lot, but like many, have gone to electronic books. I like to be able to carry a thousand books with me.
Aside from some rare reference books, there isn't a big market. Even those have dropped. One reference book I have was $600 five years ago, and it's value has dropped to $60.
I have also had a hard time parting with my hard copies. I recently donated quite a few to the local library. Some were over a hundred year old first editions. I'd looked them up, nothing rare, $15 tops on any of them. If I had to mail them, they would essentially be free to the purchaser after I paid postage.

[Electrod47]

I have an entire library at home. 200 of my most treasured. Mostly historical, all pre-1950 topics. Educational books mainly concerned with the hunting/fishing/shooting stuff. I have only a handfull of novels. 3 from my childhood. First book ever read titled "Cowdog" and a couple sci-fi that stoked my imagination at 13 by Andre Norton, who I later learned was actually a woman. In the 1980's living practically on top of the site of the old Katherine Mine at Lake Mohave Arizona my teenage son and I devoured every Louie L'Amour paperback ever printed Twice! Plus a couple "Longarms" when nobody was lookin'.........The only book I have purchased recently concerned the death of JFK.
When I get the urge to read today I merely re-read something from my library.....yes I have several bibles also. I love re-reading the old King James version concerning Sampson...."The Philistines are upon you!!!

[BrassMagnet]

I love old books!
I collect old "how to" and history books. Another favorite is books on military equipment.
Have I ever mentioned that I worked in aviation for over forty years? Tomcats in the Navy and civil aviation.

[lightman]

I'm a reader! I donated a lot of my books to the local library when we recently moved.

[challenger_i]

I have a varied taste in printed material. As for "old books", a fair chunk of my collection were printed prior to the War of Northern Aggression, which are hugely informative on the political goings-on of the Post-Revolutionary War period. One of my prized possessions is a complete set of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first printing (did I mention a "varied" taste?).

[Nines&Twos]

I just started How to enjoy the Bible by E.W. Bullinger. Much harder to digest than I thought it would be but that's half the fun of reading older authors. No matter how good the story...most modern authors style of writing leaves much to be desired.

[BrassMagnet]

When I was young, my Grandma always gardened. She lived on a tiny corner lot. Her gardening had the few square feet she had covered in flowers and edible landscaping. Nut trees, fruit trees, roses and many other flowers. She also grew a lot of vegetables. I remember garlic and carrots. I'm sure there were more. For the carrots, she never bought seeds. She saved seeds. I did not learn how back then and I have no clue what variety of carrots she grew year after year from saved seeds. I now have a book on saving seeds and I am learning how.
When I was younger, I also got to attend school in the same school district my Mother attended school. I got to compare her school books to mine. What a shock! I didn't know history could change that much in less than twenty years!
Books are good to have. I also have a Kindle. With a Kindle, Amazon can ban a book you have and it will disappear off your Kindle without a trace. I can't prove it, but I suspect it will also disappear from your purchase history so you can't even complain about it. A paper book on good quality paper can last over a hundred years.
Technical books, text books, and how to books could really help you keep going in bad times. When will bad times come? I doubt next week, but I am not so sure about next month.

[challenger_i]

Writing styles... That is an interesting subject in itself. Read the common literature from the late 1700's (say, James Fenimore Cooper) mid 1800's, early to mid 1900's (that section reads like it was meant for grade-school kids) and then the last 30 years. It will open One's eyes.

[high standard 40]

I read printed books every day and have been doing so for quite a while. Almost exclusively crime drama and action books. I never really got interested in history or the classics. I also keep all my books and my library is growing so I'm a collector as much as a reader. I have some books I've read more than once and always find enjoyment in doing so. There are several authors that I buy from. The list of authors is as follows:

Barry Eisler
Craig Johnson
Lee Child
Michael Connely
Stephen Hunter
Vince Flynn
Jack Carr
Mark Greaney
James Lee Burke
Joshua Hood

[abunaitoo]

I read books for entertainment.
Just like the feel of holding paper in my hands.
Have way to many book collected.
Tried to give some away on craigs list, and never even got a nibble.
Tried those ipads and tablets, but just didn't like the feel of it.
To me, people have just gotten stupid these days, because they just don't read anymore.
I knew a guy who couldn't even read a menu, and graduated from high school here.
Just goes to show what kind of school system we have.
Guy I know reads on audio books.
Sign of the times.
Sad.

[Froogal]

Wife was given one of those KINDLE things as a retirement gift. We both have tried reading books on it but neither of us like it for that. She has some word games that she plays on that thing, otherwise it is useless.

Local library has an ongoing used book sale. People donate books they no longer want, and the library then sells them for $1.00. We have built a fairly good library of our own. Several "Clive Cussler" and "James Patterson" novels.

[challenger_i]

"Clive Cussler"... Now, THERE was a wordsmith with a wild imagination! Feature a hot-air dirigible airship, powered by Rotax engines. In Equitorial Africa. Sneaking up on Dirk Pitt ("Blue Gold"). I realize not everyone is aeronautically privy, but how many folks among us can count the errors in that scenario?

[Duckiller]

Clive Cussler lives in a unreal world. Read one of his books that had no relation to our real world geology and gave up on his fanasty. James Paterson co writes with too many people. Just trying to make a buck.

[Scrounge]

I quit smoking as a teen, the day I found I could get five used paperback books for what my 3 packs of cigarettes cost each day. Won't say it's saved me any money, but I think I might be a bit healthier. I have worn out a few kindles. Mostly, I use one of the android tablets or phones. Kindles are a crippled android tablet, with fewer apps available. I have the Kindle App, and two other ebook reader apps on my phones and tablet. Last I checked, I have something on the order of 13,000 ebooks that are mostly fiction. I've got a 1terabyte microSD card in my Samsung 10" tablet that has nearly 500 gigabytes of metalworking and gunsmithing and electronics and other technical material on it, in addition to all the fiction. Until I got the new phone, I had a 500gb microSD card in it, too. The new phone won't take any microSD cards, but does have 128gb of storage.

Physical books are declining in my library, but that's because many of them are already pretty old, and we had some flooding decades ago that took out nearly a third of what I already had. A lot of that was irreplaceable, and I didn't have a good catalog of what I had. One of the things I got to help me with my problem was a ledger-size scanner/printer/fax. I can scan most magazines or books, and save them. Though it's very time-consuming, so I've not gotten a lot of it done. I'm also finding it difficult to catalog the electronic books.

But I spend at least an hour a day reading something. I've found a series of science fiction books that are comedic, and romantic, and just generally fun. Starts with Bob's Saucer Repair by Jerry Boyd. Just bought the 43rd book in the series. Kindle books, at $2.99 each. It's my go-to escape fiction when I need a break from real life. Also read books on metalworking, gunsmithing, shooting, prepping, and especially military science fiction. The one thing I'm throwing away is all my teaching books. Spent a decade going to school to be a teacher, collected several thousands of dollars in books on teaching, but subjects and pedagogy, and they're mostly useless and worthless. So now they're landfill. I collect and try to protect all other kinds of books, though. Love paper books. The smell and feel of them. But I cannot carry even a small percentage of what I have with me in paper formats.

For a while, I was copy&pasting the text from the BSR books into a text document, and converting them to one of the ebook formats my other apps can read, but I'm way behind on that, and I don't know if the current Kindle for PC app still allows that. You lose all the formatting and any illustrations, but do save the text. Great for fiction, not so good for technical material.

[challenger_i]

Scrounge: as regards your "teaching" books, how slick is the paper? Never know when we might have another dempanic...

[Alex_4x4]

Writing styles... That is an interesting subject in itself. Read the common literature from the late 1700's (say, James Fenimore Cooper) mid 1800's, early to mid 1900's (that section reads like it was meant for grade-school kids) and then the last 30 years. It will open One's eyes.

Can I ask you to explain what you want to say? Did I understand correctly that the texts of the same work and author, but in books from different decades of publication, differ?

Topicstarter - thank you! You raised an interesting topic.

A paper book, once printed, will never change the text it contains, but an electronic book is rather information for familiarization and comprehension, and it is difficult to say how this information can transform over time.

[Wayne Smith]

No, he's talking about how the English language has simplified over the generations.

[challenger_i]

Writing styles. How the "story" is carried, and how it is perceived by the reader. Reading a selection from each period is an eye-opener.
An example: "A Tale of Two Cities" is vivid, and makes the reader feel they are in the setting. "The Grapes of Wrath" gives One the impression of being lectured to by the Professor.

Can I ask you to explain what you want to say? Did I understand correctly that the texts of the same work and author, but in books from different decades of publication, differ?