Comment by moffkalast
14 hours ago
And you don't even have to hold it open and mess with bookmarks which at least to me was always super annoying. And the built in lamp, chapter search and dictionary. And single tap page forward and back. Physical books are beyond obsolete imho.
> mess with bookmarks
I’ve have had enough bookmarks fall out of the book that I have changed my strategy. Instead of using a bookmark I take a photo of the last page I was reading before closing the book. I then add the photo to favourites so it’s easier to find. And then later when I continue to read, I check in my camera roll to see what page I was on. With the current book I am reading I also like to end on the end of a chapter when I can. Easy to remember that next time I will start reading chapter 5 or whatever. And if I don’t have time or energy to read to the end of a chapter I still try to remember what page number I am on, just in case my phone runs out of battery and I want to continue reading.
> I’ve have had enough bookmarks fall out of the book that I have changed my strategy.
I solved this with small post-it notes I use as bookmarks. Some of my textbooks and recipe books have dozens of them, colour-coded. Very convenient.
For novels I just stopped using bookmarks. I open roughly where I left off, read a sentence. If the book is new or I read it last recently, it’s accurate to within a page or two. If I remember the sentence, I skip forward a couple of pages, otherwise I skip back. Occasionally I reread a paragraph I forgot. Otherwise it just reminds me of what was happening before a new reading session.
I found that Japanese book sales cards [0] work very reliably as bookmarks and don’t fall out. One can easily make them oneself out of thin, preferably non-smooth (friction-y) paper, by folding a strip in two and cutting out a lip for easier handling. In use they look like this [1]. They hold better due to being two strips clasping a book page, and due the static friction of the paper. Because they don’t stick out of the book (the lip bends and can fold) like regular (often glossy) thick-paper bookmarks often do, they also don’t “catch” and risk getting pulled out that way.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=%E6%9B%B8%E7%B1%8D%E5%...
[1] https://imgcp.aacdn.jp/img-a/800/auto/aa/gm/article/4/1/4/9/...
In middle and high school when I was reading my way through my parents' fantasy and scifi collection, I got to a point where I'd just make a note of the page number when I set the book down and was able to recall it next time I sat down to read. I don't remember if I kept that up through college, but I've been reading pretty much exclusively on a kindle since 2010 or so.
Well that's certainly the most ridiculous way of keeping track I've ever heard of :D Not only do you always have to scroll through the pages to find the right one, you also have to mess with your phone a bit first.
I would assume that the photo includes the page number.
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This is great until you want to flick back quickly to reference something earlier in the book where you can't quite remember the wording but you remember the rough context.
I don't care about chapter search, nor a dictionary. I actively dislike tapping to change pages, it is far less pleasant than turning a page. Physical books are not obsolete, you just don't like them. Which is fine, everyone has a preference. But it's kind of grating when people use the term "obsolete" which implies that one solution is objectively superior to the other, rather than both having a different experience which some might prefer.