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Millions of Books

Why I prefer ebooks

Esther Spurrill-Jones
2 min readMay 18, 2019
Photo by James Tarbotton on Unsplash

I started reading a hardcover book almost a week ago. I’m also reading ebooks on my phone. I keep the hardcover on the end table beside the couch in my living room, and I carry my phone everywhere with me, so obviously I’m getting through the ebook faster. But even when I’m sitting on the couch, with the hardcover right there, I find myself reaching for my phone more often than not. And now I’ve read several ebooks while I’m not even halfway into the hardcover.

There’s a lot of discourse lately on “real” books vs ebooks. A lot of very vocal readers prefer hardcovers and paperbacks over the digital versions. This is fine as everyone has different tastes. But I haven’t heard or read much from readers like me, who actually prefer digital books.

Ebooks are usually cheaper than physical books. Not always, of course, but I don’t buy the expensive ones anyway. I have an app on my phone that connects to my local library and I read the books there that I can’t afford to buy. I usually cannot justify spending more than $5 on a book.

Before ebooks, I used to carry my current book around in my purse with me. This added quite a bit of weight to my shoulder, causing all kinds of issues with my neck and back. Today, I have access on my phone to literally millions of books that weigh nothing, and if I finish the current…

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