Reading: Digital or Physical?

[sedepliss]

• Physical
• Digital
• Both
• Mostly physical, some digital
• Mostly digital, some physical

Which do you prefer? Does it make a difference for Doctor Who books?

[ItsR0b0tNinja]

I read digital for the most part. Saves on space and money.

[DarthGallifrey]

I read physical through my library. I have a handful of eBooks that I own. Audio on the other hand is entirely digital.

[Tian]

I would like to read physically but I don’t have the space and Who books are expensive here. This have forced me to read digital.

[sircarolyn]

I generally prefer print books, and I am in the awesome position of living with my best friend who owns like 90% of all DW novels so I am reading them physically. But before I moved in, I was reading them digitally for ease of access and, as others have noted, cost because some of those books are not cheap!

I don’t collect any CDs though, my BF collection is entirely digital.

[nyssaoftraken]

I much prefer physical books, but yeah, expense, so I do go digital for the rarer stories. I am a bit of a completionist, though, so I do try to collect as many books in print as I can, provided they aren’t ridiculously expensive! I also have a larger collection of CDs than is strictly necessary from someone who mostly listens digitally (mostly from BF CD sales).

In terms of non-DW, though, I try to go physical as much as possible–and I do buy CDs of my favourite albums when I can.

[JayPea]

Audiobooks, so I think that counts as purely digital

[deltaandthebannermen]

I mainly read physical books but do read some digitally. I only use my phone though so it isn’t great. I’m a sucker for the smell of real books though so will always return to them - space be damned.

[Seagullslost]

I use my ipad. I’d prefer physical books but if they’re on my ipad which I tend to take with me its easier.

[uss-genderprise]

I much prefer physical, but unfortunately I don’t own any Doctor Who books and I doubt my local library would have any. They’re also not exactly commercially available here, and shipping can get pretty expensive. And I just know that if I started I would want a full collection, and that would get out of hand fast. Best stick to digital.

[NyssaUnbound]

I try to do physical when I can, but I do most of my reading during downtime at work, so digital is usually more practical

[DarthGallifrey]

Check to see if your library has an Inter-library loan program. While it’s still hit and miss, my library system is fairly often able to get Who stuff. That’s how I’ve read all my Who novels over the past 14 years. I live in Northwest Washington and currently have an IDW collection on ILL from Salem, Oregon and a DWM comic collection from Emporia, Kansas. So you might be surprised what you can get.

[felix]

Depends, but generally speaking digital is easier to access and I don’t have to carry it around.

[SweetAIBelle]

Generally, I purchase digital copies for new books, but I own a lot of physical books, and I like to pull them out and read them occasionally, too. There are a few physical books I tend to have floating around, too, like Terry Pratchett’s “Going Postal”, Christopher Stasheff’s “A Company of Stars”, and a few Ray Bradbury and Roger Zelazny collections…

[snakesontoast]

Generally I tend to read easier with physical books (or audiobooks but those are hit or miss for me), but a lot of books I want to read I can only find as ebooks. I don’t have nearly the budget for physical copies of all of the who books I want to read, and my library system has very few (and mostly ebooks at that) so everything I’ve read thus far was digital. I do have my first target novelization in the mail at the moment, though.

[CommanderBayban]

Digital unless the book can’t be found online at all. It’s easier for me to annotate and whatnot in a digital copy. Also I’m not a collector, so I’m not compelled to purchase a slew of books that can be easily found online.

If I really want to read a physical book and it’s available at the library, that would be my first point of contact over purchasing.

[PalindromeRose]

Reviews or articles I’m fine with reading digitally, but something like a Doctor Who book needs to be physical for me.

I’ve always struggled with reading and keeping myself focused, so I often treat reading a Doctor Who book like this grand ceremony;

• Preparing an iced coffee or a cup of peppermint tea
• Smelling the pages of the book when I begin it, because that scent is divine.

Then I’ll go on YouTube an stick video of ambient noises and music on, but it has to fit the story I’m reading. And then it’s on loop any time I read that book.

I’ll give two examples from recently;

When I was reading ‘The Wheel of Ice’, I stuck on an ambient piece called “Frozen Planet” which really helped me visualise the Mnemosyne Cincture (the setting of said story).

With ‘Goth Opera’, I found a video of music and ambience for Dracula’s castle, which I stuck on and managed to finish the book in a day and a half.

I realise I probably sound a bit strange for treating reading a Doctor Who book like some sacred ritual, but it honestly helps me get the most enjoyment out of them.

[dema1020]

For Doctor Who I am almost entirely digital, mostly because I just have a hard time finding the old books I want to read since most are out of print and incredibly expensive as a result.

[PalindromeRose]

@dema1020

incredibly expensive as a result.

I paid £80 for my copy of ‘Lungbarrow’ only to discover it was one of the reproductions from 2015.

It was advertised as an original.

[RassilonianLegate]

I prefer physical, but convenience means most things I read are digital