I too like both e-books and real books. But an e-book reader is a must for holidays, or for waiting-rooms.
My first e-book reader was a Kobo, using a paper-white screen with e-ink technology. It lasted about five years or so and worked very well until it died. As with any other book, you needed to have a light on to read it in the dark.
Most of the book I read are old classics, out of copyright, which are available for free download from sites such as Gutenberg Press. But at the same time my wife bought a Kindle because, she thought, more new books could be purchased for it than could with the Kobo. At the time, that was correct, But downloads for Kindle were in proprietary Amazon format, which Amazon had hoped would have people only buying Kindles. Once the almost-universal epub format became the industry standard for reading on all machines, Amazon started losing sales so had to follow suit, thus losing their aimed-at monopoly of ebook readers. When she bought her Kindle my wife also bought a leather cover for it that contained a little book-light that could be swung out to light up the screen – better than my Kobo, which needed a table lamp or standard lamp if I wanted to read it at night-time.
However, after that first Kobo died I purchased a replacement that, by then, had been provided with built-in front-lights at the bottom of the screen – in other words it had become independent of an external light source. Other than, it’s essentially the same machine as the first one. But the front lighting makes all the difference. It’s adjustable in brightness and takes its power direct from the Kobo battery. The only downside is that, because of the battery-drain from the lights, I now have to charge the Kobo about once weekly instead of something less than once monthly. The Kobo still has the paper-white screen with e-ink, so unlike some other e-book readers is only black and white. But there’s not the eye-strain you get from the backlit screen that colour e-book readers necessarily have.
Other than the lighting benefit, any e-book can store lots of books, so going on holiday you can pack a whole library in the space taken by a few handkerchiefs. And since the Kobo also slides quite happily into my trouser pocket with my wallet, when I’m going to the dentist’s or anywhere else I expect to have to wait I take it with me.
I always use the epub format exclusively, and any book in that format can be edited on the computer – say, to add maps or other graphics from elsewhere, or correcting spelling – before the book is downloaded to the ebook reader. (Epub files are simply a string of HTML files.The editing software I use is Sigil, which is a free download, and which doesn’t require you to be expert in editing HTML to use.)
Final comment – at the time of purchase, the Kobo proved to be a better buy than the Kindle or the Sony, which were the then two best competitors.
