Do you buy rent or borrow? Or do you have a subscription of some kind? Do you read physical books or do you read ebooks?
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I pirate shamelessly. Z-lib is my to-go.
I just realized, boy is it refreshing to actually talk about sites like z-lib without being censored. Library Genesis and Anna’s Archive are also nifty.
I didn’t know about Anna’s Archive, thank you. :)
yeah if i’m even remotely ambiguous on whether i’d want a book, piracy. i can’t buy everything and i can’t go to a library every day. but i definitely try to buy books from the authors i know i like—i heard great things about NK Jemisin and Kim Stanley Robinson for example, read one of their books, and then that made me go out and buy large parts of both’s output. i think i have physical copies of like a third of KSR’s major novels, lol.
Exactly. I always read a pirated epub first, then, I always go out and buy that book in hardcover. But many of the authors I enjoy are long dead, and many of their prints are in public domain. So piracy doesn’t matter there. That’s where Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks are incredible!
Book Depository closed the other month, I don’t know if Amazon understood how important it is for people outside US and EU, but the closure really pushed everyone I know to casually switch back to piracy.
What? The website looks the same to me?
Where are you looking
It feels so good to finally say this outright. Arrr!
I listen to a lot of audiobooks in my car, which got me back into the reading-for-pleasure habit after a dry spell during and after grad school. I have a subscription to libro.fm, the source of most of my audiobooks.
When not in my car I borrow a lot of ebooks from libby, or hoopla if the book’s not on libby. I also sometimes borrow audiobooks. I haven’t borrowed a physical book from the library since COVID.
Less often, I buy books from Powells, but my physical book collection is so big, I usually only buy older books that aren’t available from other sources.
I have a wealth of sources for book recommendations to find new books. Powells, who have staff recommendations every month, New York Times, librarything, a gazillion places on the web…
I’m a pirate, I download almost everything that I’m going to read. Honestly, I don’t even remember when was the last last time when I bought a book.
I only read ebooks now, because a Kobo is what got me to read again (after a long time of only reading for school).
How do I get the books? Usually torrent (it’s the convenience, price, and format that works best for me). Other times it’s through the library or if I really want to support an author (like Cory Doctorow) then I buy the ebook.
I buy my books from either ebooks or Amazon, then load them on my kindle which I carry everywhere. It’s an old paper white that usually fits into the pocket of whatever jacket I’m wearing.
I like physical books too but I really don’t have the space to be stacking up. I also read a lot in public and don’t like for people to always know what I’m reading lol. Nothing sketch, I’m just a private person.
Either Library Genesis for ebooks, or thriftbooks.com. Also some local used book stores, like Half Price Books (not sure if they are everywhere?)
Thrift Books is nice because you can choose the edition you want, if they have it available. Also you might get nice surprises occationally. I ordered Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons and ended up getting an autographed copy. You can also earn credits for free books, and it’s free shipping on orders over $25(?), so I usually order 4-5 at a time. (Not an ad, I just really like thriftbooks lol)
I have been 100% ebooks for years, but after a combination of factors such as books not being available from my library on Libby and them being kinda pricey on Kindle, plus getting in to a booktuber (Ariel Bissett!) I got introduced to ThriftBooks and in 2 months I’ve bought over 15 physical books. 😅 It’s a change to be sure and I’m not sure how I feel about all the space books will take up again in my life, but it’s nice to have them.
Combination of my local second-hand bookstore (which has a wildly good selection given that I live in a small country town), my two favourite “regular” bookstores, Libby, and the Kobo ebook store.
If I can’t find something particularly niche or out of print, I’ll use Abe Books but I try to avoid that since it’s owned by Amazon.
Edit: I’ve started to favour print books most of the time, at least for poetry and non-fiction. I’ve started to write more again and I find physical books much easier to refer back to.
I prefer nonfiction to be printed books as well. For some reason I don’t seem to take it as seriously as an ebook, maybe it feels too insubstantial for my brain to take it seriously.
I have two apps for borrowing books, one for Finnish and one for English books (Ellibs and Libby). Weirdly the Finnish one sucks balls and literally has like 100 fantasy books in total. I don’t read a ton but I do take a gander at stuff to borrow on occasion. I can sync the borrowed books with my Kobo e-reader which is nice. Then I also use the Kobo store to buy books, but my god their app is terrible. Bad enough that I groan when I need to browse books in there. I don’t really read physical books but it has been tempting to start browsing libraries as I have two within walking distance. Perhaps during summer.
Haven’t really found a good place to find new books. It is mostly though reddit. I know people use Goodreads but eh, for some reason it does not appeal to me that much.
There’s https://bookwyrm.social/ for fediverse goodreads alternative. For Finnish e-books, try https://ekirjasto.kirjastot.fi/ . It redirects to overdrive/ellibs in the end. In a year or two all of Finland should be served by one huge e-library instead of every library having their own e-library. Let’s hope that improves the situation.
I mostly read on royalroad an scribblehub (if you consider web serials to be books)
I just use my local library now. I don’t usually read a book twice, so I don’t see any point in purchasing books anymore.
I buy books only when I really love the edition. Otherwise, I’ll buy some on kindle and rent others through my local library, or Libby. I only buy physical copies of books I am happy to re-read.
I read a mix of ebooks and physical books. Usually the choice is determined by the type of book. For example, usually more genre fiction gets an ebook, whereas more so called “literary fiction” gets a physical copy.
For example I’ve picked up House of Leaves at a local independent bookstore, along with the Molloy books by Beckett and the Norton Annotated Moby Dick. I don’t think house of leaves would work at all as an ebook and heavily annotated items I prefer a physical copy.
Alas I am running out of bookshelf space so I have to be much more selective these days. As for finding books, it’s usually word of mouth or on storygraph. I also follow the book youtube Leaf by Leaf whom I can thoroughly recommend.
The ebooks I prefer on eink devices, for portability I have a Kobo and for notetaking or needing a bigger screen I have a supernote A5X
I only read physical books, but i also try to buy only used ones. Worked actually pretty good for the past 10-15 years and still works for me
I buy (used) physical books for every book I read, other than humble bundles (typically for programming e-book bundles). I put a lot of my income toward books though, which is maybe not advisable, but I simply love having a ton of books in my home
I typically buy used books on ebay when I want something specific (often technical books), but for fiction I often browse one of the used bookstores around me, or grab a random book from one of those little library book-boxes-on-a-stick. I like to follow the whimsical approach of reading books that come to me
Yes to all of that :) I just realised exactly how eclectic my reading habits are - lately I’ve been visiting the local library once or twice a week, plus I have a kobo subscription that has introduced me to a heap of indie authors I never would have discovered otherwise, plus I have a wall of books which are mostly used/secondhand except for a handful of absolute favourites.
