Does anyone still read books?

[Rickf1985]

[Good Cheer]

Went on a David Weber mindless fun binge and now I'm running out of book shelves again.
Oh well, been threatening to build more.

[Rickf1985]

I do not want to get rid of these books, it is more a matter of I have to since I live in a small house and I need the room. I already had issues with one area of my floor sagging due to the large bookshelf on that wall which was unsupported underneath. I put jacks under that one wall but I can't keep going round the house jacking up walls of old books.

[challenger_i]

You have the Dahak series in that stash?

Went on a David Weber mindless fun binge and now I'm running out of book shelves again.
Oh well, been threatening to build more.

[gc45]

My personal library has many of the classics, also books by Hemingway, Mark Twain, etc. I really love real history though, biblical and other, just something that teaches real life experiences. As an Engineer, I have many books on the subject and still refer to them on occasion, also my collection of collectable gun books like, the big Winchester Book, The rifleman's rifle 1st addition, Smith collectors book, Ned Swing books, Trapdoor books and many, many more on the different guns of mostly American made stuff. I have all the Shooters Bibles up through 1969 accept two additions, quite a few books on tractors and their repair, books on gunstock making as I once did that for a hobby, also a few books on metal lathes and their operation and use that helped in learning how to operate my bench lathe. I suppose nobody wants these books any longer, especially the younger crowd afterall, they can't read it on their cell phone it has no interest. I used to collect the old paperback wetern books as they were cheap and fun to read, nothing better than a Will Henry book late at night...

[challenger_i]

Books are a treasure. One day, they will be worth their weight in gold. When Mankind was digging itself out of the Dark Ages, of the wares and goods the Venetians and Genoans were bringing from the East, written material was the most sought-after commodity.

[Froogal]

"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?

I am blissfully ignorant when it comes to aeronautics or pretty much anything related to navigating in or on water, so I just read the stories and fantasize.

[challenger_i]

That is what reading novels is all about. Entertainment, and a modicum of escape from what passes for current Reality. I just found it super humorous that the Bad Guy was able to sneak up on anybody with a pair of screaming Rotax's in a hot-air dirigible airship in the Tropics. Three fails in the same sentence. The trick with GOOD fiction writing is to make it plausible.

[FISH4BUGS]

I have many books related to the Japanese War Crimes trials and Nuremburg Nazi Trials. My Dad was connected to the Japanese trials and the process is very interesting to me.

[Shanghai Jack]

We don need any stinkin books - we got the interweb.

[challenger_i]

Til the power goes out...

[James Wisner]

Recently I pulled out my E.R.B. novels and worked my way thru the John Carter of Mars. Have now started on the Tarzan novels.
I bought a bunch of them in the 70's and 80's, then a cousin gave me all of his which filled all the gaps, so I now have every one that E.R.B. wrote.
The best part is I now have a couple of First Printing and a few 2nd printing, plus all the 3rd printing I had bought.

Always grab a novel to take with me when I go to the Docs office to read while I wait

JW

[shooterg]

At least one a week, used to be more. Eyes now get blurry after a bit, sucks. Got all of L'Amour, plenty of Patterson, T. Jefferson Parker was always good. Roy Chandler's books were great. Couple good ones by Recluse I found here ! All of the Jack Reacher books to date. Lots of material dealing with the War of Northern Aggression. Action, history, hard up will even read one of the bride's romance types ! Got American Rifleman back to 1929, find something interesting every time I re-read one !

Kindle not for me.

[Shanghai Jack]

As a kid I had the entire Doc Savage series. When I left home my mother thought it would be a good idea to donate the collection. Spent the last 20 years rebuilding the collection. They're not great literary works but I enjoy the escapism.

[GhostHawk]

Love to read but I was an early adopter of E-books. Started out with a Russian ebook reader that read 14 different file types. Rechargeable battery with a USB cord, and a socket for an SD/SDHD card that could hold up to 32 gigs. That is a LOT of books.

Nowdays I do it on on a HP laptop with a free program called "Book Bazaar" free at the Microsoft store.

I have more rubbermaid tubs of hardcover books than I know what to do with. And one that is solid 60's and 70's sci-fi gold. Including a lot of the classic authors.
I also have 6 hardcovers by Larry Niven that were signed in person at the Winnipeg Key Convention in 95. (our honeymoon, a week before our wedding)

[MaryB]

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.

You would like the Honor Carrington series of Scifi books(if you haven't already read them!). It os rare I pay full price for an ebook, this series I did as they came out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorverse

[MaryB]

I thinned my physical book collection down to first editions, most signed. I have 4 signed by Heinlein, relatively rare... I went to reading kindle books on my android phone(6" screen) and read 2-3 books a week...reading is how I turn my brain off to be able to sleep! If I start thinking about a project I will lay awake all night.

[Kraschenbirn]

A book or two a week from the public library with a personal library that's fairly eclectic; full sets of L'amour and Heinlein in paperback, O'Conner, Keith, Nonte, and Brownell (all four volumes of 'Gunsmith Kinks') in hardbound, plus a couple bookcases of military history (half of one case dedicated to the American Civil War). Of course, there's also Hemingway, Churchill (a 1st U.S edition set), and some P.J. O'Rourke. More in the basement, mostly assorted sci-fi and old aviation texts and reference manuals.

Bill

[challenger_i]

Krasch, you will find most of Sir Winston's writings were published in the States. He DOES have a way with words!

[kevin c]

I was a bookworm as a kid, but fell out of the habit over the years. I built a library, anticipating a sedentary retirement, but have been too busy to read all the books I stocked it with.

Reading an hour a day might be as fun for me as a Wikipedia walk about and definitely better than a Quora crawl. I do like browsing the web, but there’s something satisfying sitting in a comfortable chair with snacks and beverage close at hand, a good book in my lap and a ready view out the window to the garden and bird feeders if my eyes get tired. I think I’ll get back to it. Thanks for putting the idea back in my head!