Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion

Bellow is a conversation we started about E-reads and ebooks in a different thread and thought it best to move it to its own thread.

Bryan Maeen | 71 comments
Mod
Oleksandr wrote: "If you don't mind, I'd like to move discussion about ebook reading devices to a separate thread, which later can be accessed by anyone seeking this knowledge. I can describe pluses and minuses of m..."

I was thinking the same thing. We did go off in a different direction than what this thread was made for, lol. I'll see about making a new thread.



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message 19: by Oleksandr - added it

28 minutes ago


Oleksandr Zholud | 53 comments If you don't mind, I'd like to move discussion about ebook reading devices to a separate thread, which later can be accessed by anyone seeking this knowledge. I can describe pluses and minuses of many such devices and related services




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message 18: by Bryan

1 hour, 22 min ago



Bryan Maeen | 71 comments
Mod
Kateblue wrote: "Probably not the problem you have. "

Pretty close. That sounds like visual dyslexia. I was diagnosed in my last year of college with auditory and visual dyslexia. I'm decent at memorizing words I hear, but I'm crap at spelling. I'm also crap are new words as the phoenix to letter never stuck with me. But I'll give it a go. I need to actually read more to help me get better at it.



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message 17: by Kateblue (last edited 2 hours, 7 min ago)

2 hours, 8 min ago


Kateblue | 156 comments I asked my husband if the Kindle helped with his specific slow reading problem and he said, yes it does, but his problem is pretty specific and the reason it helps, ditto. (His eyes skip off the line he is reading. They don't track right. Nobody ever diagnosed this, and he was well into adulthood before he figured out everyone's reading wasn't like this.)

BUT the Kindle makes it easier for him to track the lines of text because he makes the font big. Therefore, there are fewer lines on a page to search through when his eyes do the mistracking thing, which means less time to get started again.

Probably not the problem you have.




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message 16: by Bryan (last edited 2 hours, 48 min ago)

2 hours, 48 min ago



Bryan Maeen | 71 comments
Mod
Art wrote: "While we are on topic, may I interest you in Kindle hard case? Premium Magnetic Leather Smart Case, only $9.99 and free shipment within a week!

Also check out our recommendations! People who purchased Kindle also bought:
Styluses for Kindle 7, Pouch Cases, Wedge Pillow, Doritos Multipack, Pony Stirrups.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon! "

lol, nice!



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message 15: by Art

18 hours, 3 min ago



Art | 188 comments
Mod
Bryan wrote: "Alright Alright...I'll make sure Amazon knows the 3 of you talked me into getting a Kindle. Hopefully they will send you commission for the sale! lol"

Bah, we are just looking out for a fellow reader! While we are on topic, may I interest you in Kindle hard case? Premium Magnetic Leather Smart Case, only $9.99 and free shipment within a week!

Also check out our recommendations! People who purchased Kindle also bought:
Styluses for Kindle 7, Pouch Cases, Wedge Pillow, Doritos Multipack, Pony Stirrups.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon!



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message 14: by Bryan

22 hours, 2 min ago



Bryan Maeen | 71 comments
Mod
Alright Alright...I'll make sure Amazon knows the 3 of you talked me into getting a Kindle. Hopefully they will send you commission for the sale! lol



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message 13: by Art

23 hours, 22 min ago



Art | 188 comments
Mod
Oleksandr wrote: "Bryan wrote: "the one question I had about the Kindle was can you turn off the automatic previews and constant sells pitching?"

You can either buy a slightly or expensive one with no ads (same har..."

What he and Kate said, e-books are the way to go, saves you a lot of trouble on all accounts. One thing to add though is that you might consider what other functions you want to have access to. Tablets are almost as good as laptops these days and are much easier to use, Samsung for instance has an insane line of tablets with great resolution and battery life. Still nothing beats Kindle on account of "reading time".

I have traveled a lot and trust me, buying the same book 6th time in a row (hard to ship your library from continent to continent) is a huge waste of money.

I read in bed, on trains, in a bus, standing in a queue. Nothing beats e-books in terms of accessibility.



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message 12: by Oleksandr - added it

23 hours, 45 min ago


Oleksandr Zholud | 53 comments Bryan wrote: "the one question I had about the Kindle was can you turn off the automatic previews and constant sells pitching?"

You can either buy a slightly or expensive one with no ads (same hardware!) or jailbreak it (very easy!) and even read epub and fb2 and other formats there.

Also check Kobo - they have a slightly larger screen IIRC.

I myself use Pocketbook but I ain't sure you'll need its functions and it costs more

and if you prefer tablet to e-reader - use it, there is no negative effect on eyes from modern LCDs




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message 11: by Bryan

Apr 17, 2018 10:52AM



Bryan Maeen | 71 comments
Mod
Man you guys a pitching a good buy. You both should work for Amazon. I've thought about getting a Kindle. My wife uses an e-reader, but goes through barnes and noble. the one question I had about the Kindle was can you turn off the automatic previews and constant sells pitching? My grandma has one and when I help her with it, it just annoys me on how many adds it has on it. If you buy it, you shouldn't have to deal with adds.



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message 10: by Kateblue

Apr 17, 2018 09:51AM


Kateblue | 156 comments Actually, Bryan, I agree with Art that you should get an e-reader. I have a bunch of older ones, but for you . . .

Maybe a Kindle Fire 7, only costs $49, you can run audible books on it, and your book that you just bought (for $14.99, I think you said) would only have been $4.99. There, you saved 10 bucks already!

And you can stream movies, though I don't

My husband loves his Kindle Fire 7. He has always been a slow reader, too. I don't know if he thinks it's easier than reading a book, but I can ask him. He also keeps music and stuff on it.

I like the feature that lets you make the print really big if you want to. It's nice in low light situations because you need not turn up the brightness, thus saving power. Also good if you are getting to that stage in life where you need reading glasses. You won't need them as much if you can make the font bigger. And you can choose between fonts--serif fonts like the one here are supposed to be easier to read.

I just bought a Kindle Fire 7 because my old, used Kindles keep having jack failures. The hardest thing was figuring out how to get Alexa to shut the f*** up!

I have no connection with Amazon except that I buy (too much) stuff there.

Sorry, more off-topic words than I thought I was gonna write . . .




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message 9: by Oleksandr - added it

Apr 17, 2018 08:50AM


Oleksandr Zholud | 53 comments Bryan wrote: "Man...you are making me wish it is tomorrow! My book was shipped and will be here tomorrow! "

Go digital - no more waiting, no problems with selves upon shelves of books to dust off :)

Thanks Bryan for setting a separate thread for the topic. I am interested in e-book reading devices for a long while. I owned the 2nd generation Kindle back in 2010.
So, firstly you have to choose between a tablet and a e-reader
Tablet advantages:
• Multitask – read, watch, listen, play
• Color, including using light text on dark background for night reading. May be important if you have sleep disorders
• Multi-format books can be used without a problem
Tablet disadvantages:
• Battery life - usually used up in a day
• Weight – usually heavier, felt if you customary keep it in hand. The difference may be small.

e-reader advantages:
• long battery life – if I use it actively 4-5 hours a day it still lives for a week
• anti-glare – no problem reading under direct sunlight
• light weight
• different screen sizes if you look beyond leaders – from 5” to 13”, with 6” as the most often used. Tablets are usually 7-10”
e-reader disadvantages:
• good only for reading
• only greyscale
• often few book formats unless you jailbreak it

My phone I'm able to do pretty much anything a tablet would do. I have the Samsung Note 7.

I'm curious what brands you are looking at for both tablets and e-reads. Which ones are you specifically looking at?

Samsung is a great brand when it comes to displays also what Oleks mentioned earlier about dark backgrounds and I attest to that being a nice feature, the eyes don't tire as much and with blue light filter there is no risk of getting any permanent eye damage, according to the experts.

Reading on a phone works for me, it yields at least 6-8 books a year in what is mostly rereads or nonfiction. I would however be hesitant to suggest that having phone is enough to enjoy regular reading. Especially when lying down your reading speed might be slower because of the smaller display and from my personal experience I tend to put down the phone much sooner than I would do if I were reading on a tablet or Kindle.

Personally I prefer a good tablet over a mediocre laptop, it can manage pretty much the same functions. If you have a desktop PC and have use for a secondary multimedia device, get yourself a tablet. Both the video and audio quality are staggering on some of the tablets so even watching a movie or series on it is not out of the question.

Besides reading there are tons of apps that one could benefit from. Now don't get me wrong, I am not an app guy (my list of top 5 apps would include a calender and a calculator, those are apps right?) and still I am pretty much aware of the benefits of some of the apps out there.

If I remember correctly Samsung Note Pro is a nice line of tablets you might want to check out but I am not up to date with the model numbers, some of the models cost extra due to 4G connection availability and other nonsense you don't particularly need for reading.

Choice of tablets:

My income is quite low if you take the US median salary, so I opt for cheaper Chinese stuff. They have local brands like Xiaomi and Meizu, which are usually cheaper that Samsung or Amazon Fire and have similar hardware and Android as their soft. If you buy for reading only, I guess refurbished tablets are the way to go, you can even get old iPad cheaper than new Chinese noname. The latest Chinese tablet my friend bought for his kinds was ALLDOCUBE – they have below $100 price tag for smaller and slightly above $100 for larger and more powerful. For comparison Amazon Fire 10” w/o ads is $169 and I think it has built-in software locks.

Next – e-readers. Stay tuned!

Yea, I'm with you, Oleksandr, on the income part. I was for the government as a social worker in a state that doesn't really believe in taking care of the poor and needy. So, we get by. I was talking to my wife about an e-reader and how you guys have talked me into it. She pulls out one of her old ones. It's probably about a good 5 to 7 years old, but it still works. I'm going to give that a try and if I really like it, then I'll look more seriously into getting a newer one.

Bryan wrote: "It's probably about a good 5 to 7 years old, but it still works."

Most likely a Kindle, 2nd or 3rd generation or Nook - they are the most popular choice. If quite old it lack frontlight - new ones are higher contrast and have light to read in the dark. If you like to experiment with software (most of my friends do, me - not so much) find a model and firmware version you have and visit forums on mobireads https://www.mobileread.com/forums/ind...

jailbreaks allow for many new options!

It is not under any warrant. I've never jailbroke a device, but I might look into it. I play dungeons & dragons and I was planning on putting all my characters and DM stuff on it to help me out as well.

I'll let you know how it goes if I do break it. It's a nook...my wife only does barnes and noble.

Bryan wrote: "I'll let you know how it goes if I do break it. It's a nook..."

I have an old nook, without frontlight. I tried to jailbreak it but no success. It was refurbished version so it seems there was some quirk. Good thing they are almost unbreakable - even if you damage its system, it still can repair itself (after 8 hits on a button IIRC). What I hated in old Nooks is absence of hyphenation

Just buy a clip on book light. I have a couple of Everready ones, but they don't seem to be making them anymore. Amazon has a bunch. Just type in clip on book light.

I know what you mean about working for a social services agency. Good luck!

Bryan wrote: "Yea, I'm with you, Oleksandr, on the income part. I was for the government as a social worker in a state that doesn't really believe in taking care of the poor and needy. So, we get by. I was talki..."

Let us know how you like it so far. Those old e-readers might take some time to get used to and though I am using tablet for the most part these days I miss my old sturdy 3645-hour-battery-life kindle whenever I am travelling or out in the sun,

Alright, the "e-reader" my wife was using if actually a Samsung tablet. She moved to Apple products about a year ago and got a good deal for an ipad.

I downloaded the Kindle app on my new-to-me tablet and started to read last night.

I messed with the settings and found a set up that really works well for me and made me less stressed from trying to read. I changed the background to black with white letters, spaced the lines a bit more, made the font one notch bigger, and (most importantly) changed the font to an amazon's dyslexic font.

The font looks funky, but it really does help me and keeps my eyes from sliding to a different sentence or replace a word with one above/below it. So, I have high hopes and I again thank everyone for being so dogmatic about e-readers/tablets!

It is great to hear it!

I will get my husband to try the dyslexic font today.

Did anybody explore the question of blue light and its long-term effects on eyes in general? The reason I ask is because I've discussed it with a friend of mine and we couldn't settle on anything. I've tried doing a bit of a research the other day hut it would seem like there are two separate groups lobbying either for or against it. I did find however an article that quotes doctors saying that nlue light emitted from tablet screens has no permanent effects on eyes.

Did anybody else do any research on that?

Art wrote: "Did anybody explore the question of blue light and its long-term effects on eyes in general? "


From what I've read:
1. when e-ink readers write that their product is better for eyes than screens, they used a study from the 1990s that compared with CRT screens, not current LCD ones. There is no proof that any LCD screen is bad for your eyes, bluelight or not.
2. e-ink is not different from paper due to its technology - like a printed page it uses only reflected light.
3. LCD screen to be seen shines light through the crystal, thus prolonged use burdens your eyes like ordinary light shining to your face.
4. blue light seems to damage eyes more than other LED https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...

All that sounds similar to what I was able to find, one thing I can add is that some of the professionals in the field seem to suggest that none of the negative effects of blue light are permanent.

Let us hope they are right!

Art wrote: " some of the professionals in the field seem to suggest that none of the negative effects of blue light are permanent...."

Human organism developed to withstand a lot of punishment from the environment and that's great!

One benefit of e-readers: you can get cheap books from HumbleBundle.

Point your web-browsing device over to www.humblebundle.com this week to get a bunch of Nebula-award-related books for a good price and also support SFWA with the money.

(I'm not affiliated with them. I just think it is a great opportunity to get more books than I'll ever have time to read!)

Ed wrote: "Point your web-browsing device over to www.humblebundle.com this week to get a bunch of Nebula-award-related books for a good price and also support SFWA with the money.

Awesome! Thanks, Ed, for sharing this website. We are always looking for good deals!

Speaking of good deals, Tor apparently gives away a free book a month if you sign up for their book club. I just got my first one. So I have no opinion yet. They send you an email to tell you it's time.

Go here:
https://ebookclub.tor.com/?utm_source...

Also, here's where you can go to see what they have already given. I'm sorry I didn't know about this in time for "All Systems Red"

https://www.tor.com/tag/tor-com-ebook...

Bryan wrote: "'ve never jailbroke a device, but I might look into it. ..."

Instead of that, you might use a program such as "Calibre" to convert e-books from one format to another. I find that pretty easy to do and it is usually successful. Probably will not work if there is DRM (Digital Rights Management) applied to the book, but some publishers don't put DRM on their books.

Ed wrote: "Instead of that, you might use a program such as "Calibre" to convert e-books from one format to another. I find that pre..."

Greetings Ed (welcome to the group), that is indeed a good app to manage various formats. The majority of times the conversion is just a matter of a few clicks.

Ed wrote: "Probably will not work if there is DRM (Digital Rights Management) applied to the book. "

Unless you disable DRM with Calibre plugin first ;) if you do it with your books w/o an intent to profit on it, it is fine

I didn't release we had a bunch of hackers in this group! Thanks for the advice Ed. I'll look into that app.