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by vityaz_ 3347 days ago
> "Here are some things that you can’t do with a Kindle. You can’t turn down a corner, tuck a flap in a chapter, crack a spine (brutal, but sometimes pleasurable) or flick the pages to see how far you have come and how far you have to go. You can’t remember something potent and find it again with reference to where it appeared on a right- or left-hand page. You often can’t remember much at all."

I don't care about creating dog-ears or cracking spines. Really, who does?

On my kindle I'm able to highlight passages and/or make notes (which are saved to my amazon account) and I can look them up later. I can create multiple bookmarks. Some books have support for the "X-ray" feature, a reference tool, in which there might be entries on such things as characters, locations and so on.

I'm able to highlight words and look them up on wikipedia or the oxford dictionary. Very useful.

I'm able to "flick" pages back and forth and easily return to wherever I started out.

> "You can’t tell whether the end is really the end, or whether the end equals 93% followed by 7% of index and/or questions for book clubs."

I guess, not that it's a real issue for me.

And maybe best of all... I'm not dealing with mountains of books taking up space in my home anymore.

4 comments

> > "You can’t tell whether the end is really the end, or whether the end equals 93% followed by 7% of index and/or questions for book clubs." > I guess, not that it's a real issue for me.

Agreed, but also, is that really not a problem with physical books? Lots of them have backmatter with preview chapters, indices, and "questions for bookclubs".

It's much easier with a real book to flip back from the end until you find the real ending, then estimate your progress based on thickness from there. This can be done with e-books, but it's not a use-case that the developers have really worked with, so its cumbersome.
I nearly cried laughing at myself the first time I put my finger against a page to get a word definition.

Also, people who dog-ear books are war criminals.

How do you feel about people who get the bottom 5% wet in the bathtub?
I have no idea what you're asking me. Is this wit? Are you implying everyone dog-ears books? Were you ruffled by my hyperbole?
I think you're getting ribbed a bit.
Oh I'm sure I am :)

It just seems like a total non sequitur from what I had said. Trying to figure out what they meant. Sadly, we'll probably never know.

Sorry, I always take books into the bath and the bottom bit gets soggy. Which seems far worse than just dog earring the pages.

Between that and the dogs my house is where books go to die.

As a Kindle owner of many years (I've owned 4 or 5), I have too much reverence for books to create dog-ears or cracking their spines. Sacrilege. I can't even throw away shitty books I don't like, because it feels so wrong.
I could care less about the percentage, however my Kindle Paperwhite tells me how much longer it will take for me to read the rest of the chapter. So I find that very helpful, easier that just flippin ahead on a physical book.