For me, when I get books I often get the cheaper paperback option, give it a read.
Then if I really liked this book, I’ll donate it to a charity shop or in my social circle and purchase the hardcover version.
The only gripe I have with hardcover though is some books come with that sleeve cover around it, you know the one, bit fidgety to use when reading.
Paperback I like if there’s a book I am mildly interested in and I’ll just go “whatever” I’ll keep it as part a collection.
Paperbacks = cheap as chips but aren’t as protected as hardcover, easy to fill up your collection or shelf with, might sell it if i want the luxurious version of that book. this is for me.
Hardcover = More luxurious as it provides proper protection to the pages and outer area of the book, Often comes with items as part of a collectors set. Usually I get the same book if I really enjoy it to add as a gem of my shelf.
What are your tastes? Same as me or do you lean more heavily to one or the other?
I always choose hardcover. I try to keep the number of my owned physical books low. So when I do buy it, I want my eyes to be satisfied and they prefer the looks of hardcover. Since I usually buy secondhand books, overall it’s very cheap (although I don’t have high standards on the book’s condition).
When I was younger, paperback because they were cheap. These days I prefer hard back because the font is easier on my eyes.
That I said, like everyone else it seems, I do much more reading on my Kobo. It has the font benefits if I need it, but huge space savings. I still have a large collection of books but every time I move I tend to move more and move of them into ebooks.
Ebooks and hardcovers.
Not a big difference really.
I have most of the classics in paperback. Hardcovers do come out first, so if you’re in a hurry to read something new, that’s there first.
Paperback. For big books maybe hardcover so it stays in one piece, but tbh all the 1000+ page books I have are still paperbacks. Even if they were the same price, I think paperbacks are easier to hold and read since they’re more flexible. But the sturdiness of hardbacks can be nice sometimes
Either, so long as it’s a physical book. I don’t like reading on a screen for books, but don’t mind for Wikipedia and news.
Kindle.
ADHD usually means that I’ll stop mid-word and want to read something else. If I have all my books in one place, I can still sit in my comfy chair and switch, instead of wasting further hours perusing my library and getting lost in memories of acquiring each book.
Hardcover on the bookshelf that will never get read. Ebook on the Kindle.
Paperback if I’m reading in my recliner. It’s just lighter and more flexible in my hand. Hardcover if I’m sitting at a desk because it’s nice to set the hardcover down flat.
The only time I prefer physical books to ebooks is when there’s a heavy focus on maps, diagrams, or other illustrations. In those cases I generally want the physical book to be as large as possible, which usually means hardcover.
I mostly prefer ebooks and audiobooks. If I am buying physical books I usually prefer paperback if it’s something I intend to only read once or twice like a novel, and hardcover if it’s something I expect to open a lot like a TTRPG manual or coffee table book.
If it’s a new book and one that I think other people may be interested in borrowing, I’ll get the hardcover for the extra protection.
However, there’s a used paperback store down the street from me that has a whole bunch of heavily used paperbacks for like $1 each, and those have definitely been dominating my collection lately. Sometimes I’ll just pick up a dozen of them. That little store is one of those treasure troves of unexpected things, even though when you find one of those treasures, you might need to flip the pages carefully to prevent it from falling apart.
Actually I prefer E-ink (using Kobo with Koreader).
But when I have to take a physical book I prefer to choose the paperback one, it is light, cheap and flexible.
Hardcover are nicer in a bookshelf than in my hands.
Kindle. I rarely re-read, so why waste the paper/space.
PDFs
I know it was implied to be physical book, I usually read academic stuff, and having ability to select stuff and searching, dark theming, and ability to carry my older almost closet full of books, in something like 100-200 MBs of PDFs is just great. There are times when I actually had physical books, I would scan and ocr if i could not find a digital copy from the 7 seas.
When I actually would get stuff, Hardcover (preferably jacketted) because they were thick (like 400-1400 pages thick) and not having hardcover meant the covers would have a half life of something like 50 uses, maybe less, or atleast it would get stained.
