Friday Report

[adair]

I am moving forward in my effort to make space so Mike can sleep on our couch when he visits. The stacks of books are much to big to sort and make adequate decisions to keep or not, so I bought some banker's boxes and am filling them to stack in the garage. I am screening a little as I pack the boxes, and pulling out a few that I plan to read right away, but most will be brought in after Mike leaves, a box or two at a time for major work.

Making book decisions is hard. A friend does much better than I, and has collected ebooks of most of those she wants to keep. I suspect a lot that I want to keep will not be in ebook format, but some undoubtedly are. I may investigate some books, and see if I can DeDRM them so I can use them on any reader. I am happy to pay for ebooks, but I really do not want to be restricted to one brand of reader. I prefer epub as a format, but B&N epubs are restricted to B&N software. Apple books are epub; I have not tested their restrictions so I can put them on Calibre and move them to any epub reader I have.

Comments

[tanaqui]

I hope being able to bring the books back a box or two at a time makes it easier to work through them!

If you use Calibre, you should check out Apprentice Alf's tools/plugins for DRM removal: https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/

[sauscony]

That's great progress. A box or two at a time seems much easier to deal with than all the books at once.

I agree about DeDRMing ebooks. I have an Android phone and tablet, so I could get Kindle and Nook reader apps, but my eyes prefer to read an e-ink ebook reader. I have an old Sony Reader though and unless the books are on Project Gutenberg or the Baen Free Library, it's really hard to find books I can read on it. I too like epub the best of the ebook formats. Several of my favorite authors have published either ebook only novellas or the books might come out a year or so later in expensive hardcovers. I'd love to buy the ebooks and support the authors, but if I can't read the book, what's the point?

[fred_mouse]

I must admit to a deep suspicion of epub, in that while I have something to read them now, I don't trust I will in a decade, or two, or three. In part this is because I work with electronic data, and even this week have had a query from a work mate as to whether I know anything about a potentially defunct data format in files a bit over a decade old.

[tanaqui]

At the risk of being the Calibre evangelist in this post... ;-)

Calibre also converts between ebook formats (without the need for the DeDRM plug I mentioned in my comment above if the book is DRM free) and claims to be able to get content onto pretty much any e-reader out there. So I've been able to get Kindle books onto my Kobo e-reader as epubs by running the Kindle-format files through Calibre. (I've never tried with a B&N book). I've found the formatting of the converted epubs to be pretty decent.

https://calibre-ebook.com/

[adair]

Thanks. I do use Calibre, but not much recently. I have looked at Apprentice Alf in the past - apparently B&N uses the credit card number used to buy the book. I have not fiddled with it yet; I do know my old numbers, so I should be able to work it out. i want to save DDrmed books to Calibre; I do not trust the Nook to stay around, and I have a lot of books. After I get the paper books in some order I will work on saving my epub books to calibre and a stand-alone drive. I like my Nook Glow for reading, but managing side-loading is more difficult than the early Nooks, which were wonderful - better designed than the Kindle of the time. I may try Kobo; a lot of people seem to use it.
I do a lot of reading on my iPad, but a stand-alone reader is nice to use, and the eInk screen is easier on the eyes, and readable outside. I need to make time to work on all this once again.

[adair]

I am going to see if I can convert some of my Nook books to Calibre without DRM; there is a way to do it, but you need to know the credit card number you used to buy the book. I have not fiddled with it yet, but will do that sometime. I have paid for the book, but Nook readers are becoming less and less functional for me - the first few were great. tanaqui has a link to Apprentice Alf's site with information.

[yukonsally]

I'm a degreed librarian and I agree with all of this. I won't buy an ebook. I borrow library ebooks, and if I want a copy for myself, it's paper. Same with music, I don't rely on streaming and have lots of CDs.

I did just get two copies of ebooks, of paper books I own. The author offered them for free, and she's already got my money from the paper books, so I grabbed the ebooks too. But I do not rely on the ebooks. If amazon changes their mind about the ebooks and takes them back, I still have the paper copies.

[fred_mouse]

I agree on the getting paper copies. Most of what I read in ebook is opportunistic -- I've subscribed to a couple of alerts on free books, and I download things that seem interesting. When I love a book, I then buy it in paper. So far, that has been one out of 20 or 30. Other than that, I treat it as a library.

I do have some ebooks that I'll miss if something happens -- stuff that isn't (yet) available in paper copy. But I keep an eye out for those particular authors releasing the books, and get them when I can.