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Comment by SmasherEpilepti | Hacker News Reader

At that rate, you might as well buy and use an e-reader instead. It really doesn't get any more comfortable in the hands than a light device like a Kobo or whatever one you prefer.

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I somewhat liked my Kobo except for how much Rakuten kept getting more aggressive with forcing their environment on me. And then my Kobo decided to wipe and reset itself on its own, losing all of my bookmarks and other data.

Nice hardware concept, completely unacceptable software.

You should check out KOReader [1], an OSS alternative interface software for ereaders. I have it installed on my kobo and I couldn't be happier with it.

[1] https://koreader.rocks/

My grievance is mainly with the overall firmware/software that has such deep control over storage and all. I've tried KOReader and Plato, but it's just replacing the document reader.

Amongst the big ereader brands, Kobo is actually the nicest in terms of letting users hack them.

But Amazon does give a seamless experience.

I don't have the urge to fight all my devices.

I chop my books and read them on my reMarkable tablet. It really doesn't get any better.

https://www.davisr.me/projects/books/

That's cool and all, but I generally prefer my text reflowable, and find PDF reading on any not-huge e-reader to be a pain in the ass. It's worth it for things that are rich in figures and formatting (like House of Leaves, many textbooks, comics and manga, etc), but for the typical novel or non-fiction book, I really do want just text and the most minimal formatting and layout instructions possible, so I can configure to my own comfort, not to whatever the publisher has decided they want me to see.

You must have forgotten the point of this thread was about chopping books.

It seemed to me more about taking control of things to read in ways that are most comfortable and convenient. I was already off the topic of specifically chopping up books.

You replied to someone comparing it to e-readers; you do not get to complain they say more about e-readers.

What do you do with the pages of the book once you’ve scanned it?

So many books not available as epub...

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 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/...

> 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.

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.

It's still O(log n) to find the right page from a closed book.

Compare that entire rube goldberg machine with one button press on an e-reader.

OTOH, a paper book never runs out of battery :^)

Ha, I actually have insane battery anxiety usually, but even my decade old Kindle still runs for a solid month on a single charge so I've never actually had that problem at all.

It does. I photograph the page, not a super close-up of a few words of text.

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.

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.

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.

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