Superiority of Ebook Readers

Whilst I don't own a considerably significant amount of books to fill any shelves, I own quite a few. Mostly, the books I own were either borrowed from my house's bookshelf (which has collected dust because reading is for old-fashioned, apparently) or bought several at a time in rare occasions (which proved to be fairly expensive). This made me resort to digital piracy and ebook reading software on my laptop (Zathura) and Android phone (Chaka and Kotatsu), amassing a huge ~/Documents/Books/ directory over all the years, filled with PDFs, DJVUs, EPUBs, and CBZs.

I was quite an avid reader of literature works and manga, regardless of the time constraints in my daily life since I was getting bothered with much more important things to do (e.g., studying and non-stop chores). While my reading is mostly in holidays and at night, issues with portability and transport have arose with physical books, since I used to travel a lot on holidays, and other issues related to reading comfort and brightness also arose at night-time, since phones' backlights aren't so eye-friendly, and neither is the eye squinting at paper in limited lighting conditions.

I've owned an ebook reader for quite a while, specifically the Kobo Libra 2 (a much better and more ethical choice than Amazon's Kindle), modded with awesome free and open-source third-party toolsets and readers (such as NickelMenu, KOReader, and Plato), and a 128 GB Micro SD card (mostly because manga is heavyweight on storage, and I constantly have to synchronize files between my laptop and ebook reader).

Although it meant sacrificing a large share of gift money (since I was unemployed at the time), I remain very happy with my decision to buy one. Having spent more time using it, both the portability and eye comfort have proved to be much better than both physical books and other devices. The ebook reader's waterproof protection and button usability is also wonderful, especially with the SleepCover which adds portrait and landscape standing, and the battery life has remained so long that I've never once been bothered by it, and for all the aforementioned reasons, I found myself reading much more on my ebook reader than I ever did whilst reading from any other mediums.

"What about the enjoyment derived from the tactile experience of reading a physical book (say, the feeling and sound of the turn of a page, the smell of a dated paperback, etc.), or the physical ownership and display of books?"

While I do feel something about this to an extent, I find myself reading more voraciously whilst using my ebook reader than I ever did on physical books. Bookshelf display is generally unneeded as well, because my room is neither a museum nor a library. The reading experience is also generally much more comfortable on digital mediums; I don't have to worry about holding down flat a paperback that insists on shutting when drawn back from, remembering the page number of a novel when I urgently need to step down from reading and I don't have a bookmarker nearby, or the effects of potentially irreversible marginalia. Worrying about the physical state of books is especially the worst experience with physical books, since many readers often value the book's appearance more than focusing on the writing itself, especially if it's a "special edition" that sits pretty on the bookshelf.

The only reason I might want to read physical books anymore is if the book itself wasn't released in digital form (which is almost an impossible scenario) or if I want to read the Quran in the mosque (since it's widely available there, and bringing the ebook reader with me is practical redundancy). Nevertheless, buying the ebook reader was a great investment, and I'm enjoying it to the fullest. Buying physical books has proved itself both unnecessary and disagreeable, and I'm no longer owning a phone as part of my plan to maintain a Minimalist Lifestyle. It's a win-win scenario!