When I search for a book I want to read on Amazon, they often recommend the Kindle version if the book is in e-book format.
If it's a book you want to read immediately, or if it's included in Kindle Unlimited, a monthly subscription of 1,960 yen, it's not a bad idea to read it on Kindle.
I've actually bought and read some books in Kindle version, and I used to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, but I rarely read on Kindle these days.
There are a number of reasons. The biggest reason is that you can own a paper book, but you can't own an e-book.
In the case of e-books, you only pay for the right to read them.
So if you lose your e-book account for some reason, you will not be able to read any of the books you have bought up to that point.
In this respect, paper books are not lost unless they are physically
In terms of reading experience, paper books have their advantages.
Humans have many experiences through the five senses, and e-books are almost exclusively visual. It is true that there is the tactile experience of a digital device, but the device is the same no matter which book you read, so the relationship between the tactile experience and the book is severed. In other words, there is no difference in the sense of touch.
Nowadays, offset printing is all that is available, but in the past, letterpress printing was used, and the letters were uneven. When you touched it with your hand, you could feel the subtle unevenness.
There are also differences in the quality of the paper, and more importantly, the size, weight, and binding of the book, making it possible to enjoy the book not only visually but also tactilely.
I don't know how people's memories are formed, but for example, if I have a memory of something that was written in a book, I may remember that it was written in the middle of the right-hand page of the book.
If you flip through the book using that memory as a clue, you may indeed find the relevant part.
With e-books, I don't have this sense of location.
Some studies have shown that there is a big difference in our perception between paper books and e-books, even in the same act of reading.
The brain that reads digitally and the brain that reads paper books" introduces some of this research.
When the students were divided into two groups and asked to read the same short story in a paper book and on a Kindle, the students who read it in the paper book were able to reproduce the plot in chronological order more correctly than the students who read it on the Kindle.
We live in a world where we are aware of where we are in time and space. In order to do this, the big picture is essential.
However, in the electronic media, the overall framework is not clear, and we lose sight of where we stand.
This decline in physical perception may have an effect on us.
The beauty of a paper book is its visibility. Not only can you see the pages on the left and right, but you can also see how much you are reading and how long it will take you to finish by the thickness of the pages.
E-books also show you how many minutes it will take you to finish reading, but it's hard to understand if it's shown in time.
The other advantage of paper books is that you can catalog a book at a glance just by looking at the spine of the book on the shelf. So if you stand in front of a stack of books and see a book that interests you, you can always pick it up and read it.
With Kindle, this is difficult. Of course, you can see the list of books, but it's hard to find more than a few hundred books.
Paper books also have their disadvantages. A book takes up a lot of space. If you live in an urban area and have a small room, you may not be able to keep that many books, and if you have a family, you may be told that books take up too much space.
People who can own thousands of books may be able to enjoy the luxury of having a space for books.
On the other hand, an e-book is just a device. They don't take up much space and are not heavy. Even large books (more than 500 pages) can be easily picked up and read. It's also easy to take it outside. And if you want to read a book right away, you can download it instantly, so you don't have to wait for the book to arrive.
I feel that there are great advantages to reading paper books, but that doesn't mean I deny the advantages of e-books.
I believe that if you use them well, you can take advantage of both.
