"Books are good" Topic

whatever else was bad about 2020, books (proper physical hold 'em in your hand, read them in the bath, give them to someone else when you've finished with them) saw a surge in sales:

link

UK – exceeded 200million sold for 1st time in almost a decade,

USA – had 751 million sales,first time for over a decade.

Pretty good. I recall many years ago a series of heated debates about publishing moving to be all ebooks in (I think) 10 years. Ha! How do you like them apples?

So – here's the Poll bit – did you buy books in 2020?

No
1-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51+

I'm in 51+

I did buy a few (1-10), but I have been paring back my collection, so I try not to just do a refill. Maybe I am being too kind to my kids. I only read proper physical etc. books, not e-books at all.

11-20.

11-20 At some point I'll find a balance between more troops, more books and Civil War collectibles. H

11-20
Have 50+ yet to read as a conservative estimate, probably more like approaching 100.
All non-fiction by the way.
Paul

Probably in that 11-20 as most of my reading is on a Kindle fire with a Kindle Unlimited membership.

Probably 11-20, but I made great use of the local library, including inter-library loan.

and now, in 2021 I am preparing 250-300 books for sale! ACW and Napoleonics predominantly.

51+…..have also been downloading pdfs as well as EPUBs. (Well, now that I have an epub reader…LOL)

Guess 11 -20, do prefer history books I use constantly in real paper, novels or probably 1 or 2 reads are OK as Ebooks

Wow, 2020 was almost a year ago.

I'll join in the 11-20 category. That seems safe. I mostly buy non-fiction, but sometimes I'll buy a novel. Some Kindle books if the reading is light, but if it's dense or substantial I want a copy to hold in my hands.

I confess to being on a first name basis with Amazon. But I'm from the Seattle area.

51+ Love a good book.

If you know how many books you bought in a year, you didn't buy enough books. That said, the three times during lockdown I had the local used bookstore fill my shopping bag with paperbacks would by itself put me in the 51+ category. Heaven knows what the total would be. Three or four times that anyway, I should think.

However, in defense of my kindle, it has become the system of choice during meals. It's much easier to wipe salad dressing off a screen than to remove the stain from paper. Kindle books take up no space on my shelves, I can take 700 books--including 100 all time favorites--on vacation next week. And if I don't like my present reading, I can place an order in a restaurant and have a fresh book to read before the salad arrives.

Now, if I just had a way to make sure Mr. Bezos wasn't making the texts "less offensive" or "more inclusive"…

Kindle for me. I walk around with 75 full length books in my back pocket every where I go. I'll never again be restricted with one of those paper things.

51+ at my age not much beats a good read.

1-10
I got most of my books from the library in Kindle format. I've also used hoopla. Gone are the days of buying research books with abandon.

1-10, maybe 11-20. Nearly all were POD's. I have been building up my FRPG library. Even if the classics are only sold in PDF format, I can still send them to Lulu.com to get a hard copy. I prefer hard copies, hands down. Cheers!

I bought nine physical books in 2020, or ten if I count one which was bought in 2019 but suffered months of delay in delivery. I was also given one.

By way of comparison, I acquired 44 e-books that year, about half free stuff from Osprey's pandemic special, the rest roughly evenly split between purchases and free downloads of old stuff.

Kindle for fiction. Physical for books with maps, pictures etc.

In the last twelve months I've bought maybe a dozen physical books (almost all history or wargaming plus a couple of art books) but I've lost count of how many eBooks. Dozens.

1-10 for me I believe. I go in spurts, so I don't keep good track of everything (I still have room for storage).

20-30

11-20

I am running out of shelf space so I have to be very judicious in my purchases. I have a lot of books on my shelves that I use for reference but haven't had time to read cover to cover. The pandemic afforded me the opportunity to read some of them from cover to cover. All non-fiction, I can't remember the last time I read a work of fiction. Probably science fiction or a Bernard Cornwall book.

I'm with CO in this. I have about 1,000 books, so I have become pretty selective about what I buy.

Still, I did add 20 or so to my library.

They royal We probably bought in the 21-30 range.

I buy two professional development books a month, however one of them is a ebook now, since I get enough digital discounts to get one free per month. I also buy one personal development book a month, but about half of those are audio books, since I get a free audio book every month.

SWMBO buys her "brain candy" (romance novels) in paperback, so that'a another dozen+ physical books a year.

Add a few miscelaneous (I don't count pro books works buys for me), and I think We are in the 21-30 range.

I am actually out of shelf space, but I have been purging twice a year.

If you know how many books you bought in a year, you didn't buy enough books.

I know it's more than 50, but not exactly how many more…sometimes it's best not to know.