I’m still a pretty big fan of the print versions of things, especially if they have a lot of illustrations or fun pictures. But I’ve come around to accepting the fact that, well, digital is the way to go and you just can’t get away from ebooks. I guess you were there too, huh? And you’re wondering what the best way to read them is.
If you’ve got a dedicated reader, that’s great, I hope that works for you. I do have a Kindle and it’s really neat to use when I can treat it as the book on my nightstand. The fact that it syncs with any other versions of Amazon reading devices you have is bonus.
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But it’s not something I carry around and really if I have to carry more than one device, I’m just totally not interested in picking up that habit. I’ve gotten used to carrying my smartphone and quite frankly that is the best way to read an ebook.
I’m assuming you’re getting whatever ebooks you’re buying from Amazon because they just have the biggest market share, so get on your smartphone – I have an Android, so I download the Kindle app. It’s free, all the books are synced up there and it keeps track of everything.
You can take notes, you can rate the books right in there, you have suggestions on other ones you can read. You can’t quite arrange everything perfectly but there’s some sorting functionality that’s getting nicer in there and overall it’s a pleasant experience to read anywhere you go, whether that’s in line, in a meeting, in the bathroom.
You know, come on. People do it. It’s not exactly sanitary but – your phone will work in a plastic bag, by the way. I’m just saying, we’re getting to that level.
But at any time, instead of opening up Candy Crush Saga or Quiz Up or whatever, open up the Kindle app, read a page or two, that’s it. After a couple of weeks you’ll have a book done. It’s really that simple. All your notes you can log into the manage your Kindle interface later on your PC or whatever and just download your notes from there. It’s pretty amazing how far things have come.
But really, after having experienced both the e-reader version, reading PDFs on the phone, PDFs on the Kindle, on the computer, text versions, HTML versions, I really cannot recommend, for overall experience, consistency and habitability and effectiveness, anything other than the Kindle app and Kindle books.
I may be a little biased because I write them and that’s pretty much all I buy them from is Amazon’s Kindle offerings. It’s there. It’s too easy to spend too much time learning or lugging around anything else. So the best way to read ebooks: through the Kindle app, reading Kindle ebooks or well-formatted PDF ebooks. Maybe even text files.
And that’s it. Synced up. Remembers your spot everywhere you go. You have your learning library in your pocket. Get it done, get it right, get some books in that brain of yours.