Do you buy rent or borrow? Or do you have a subscription of some kind? Do you read physical books or do you read ebooks?
I pirate shamelessly. Z-lib is my to-go.
I just realized, boy is it refreshing to actually talk about sites like z-lib without being censored. Library Genesis and Anna’s Archive are also nifty.
yeah if i’m even remotely ambiguous on whether i’d want a book, piracy. i can’t buy everything and i can’t go to a library every day. but i definitely try to buy books from the authors i know i like—i heard great things about NK Jemisin and Kim Stanley Robinson for example, read one of their books, and then that made me go out and buy large parts of both’s output. i think i have physical copies of like a third of KSR’s major novels, lol.
Exactly. I always read a pirated epub first, then, I always go out and buy that book in hardcover. But many of the authors I enjoy are long dead, and many of their prints are in public domain. So piracy doesn’t matter there. That’s where Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks are incredible!
Book Depository closed the other month, I don’t know if Amazon understood how important it is for people outside US and EU, but the closure really pushed everyone I know to casually switch back to piracy.
I’m print disabled, which means I have problems reading printed text, but am not blind. Mainly, I have to be doing something with my hands or it’s really hard to focus long enough to read a book. So I get through a lot of audiobooks.
In addition to Audible and Libby, I am also eligible for the National Library Service, which has its own app. If you, or anyone you know might qualify, here’s a link to the US NLS. There are similar libraries in most other countries, and there are treaties to make books available to people living abroad in their own language.
I use the Libby app and check out ebooks from my local library usually. I have a bunch of physical books as well, but I am out of room to put them now. I also find ebooks to be more convenient. I can read whenever I want because I have all the books I’m reading on my phone.
Combination of my local second-hand bookstore (which has a wildly good selection given that I live in a small country town), my two favourite “regular” bookstores, Libby, and the Kobo ebook store.
If I can’t find something particularly niche or out of print, I’ll use Abe Books but I try to avoid that since it’s owned by Amazon.
Edit: I’ve started to favour print books most of the time, at least for poetry and non-fiction. I’ve started to write more again and I find physical books much easier to refer back to.
Mostly borrow ebooks from the public library. There is a small new-and-used bookstore near me, one of those classic “open 3 hours a day, more if we feel like it” ones. Very fun to go wander the shelves when I want a physical book.
