Paper-back books for reading.

Hardcover books for display and collecting on a nice bookshelf in your home library.

Audio books are garbage.

Hardcover stops knives and jews, I love holding my book so folks can see the Title

Paperback for a one-off read, cause you can throw it in your cart-on or beach bag easier, fold the pages over while relaxing, etc. Hardcover if it's something you're going to revisit over and over again or display for a little extra durability.

Size matters. Read a paperback copy of Clavell's 1100ish paged Shogun back in the 90s and it split at the bound seams before Toranaga buried that rat fuck Ishido up to his neck.

When I hit a used bookstore, it is either. Military history, depending, usually harsbound. But, I have some very good paperback reads that I will not part with.

This, but in reverse. If it's not hardcover, it's not worth my time.

yup i prefer hardcover. some editions are really beautiful. binding is an art.

I like old books that are hardcover. The smell of old books is a great thing, and it really ads feeling to the blatant way people used to speak.

The only true redeeming virtue of a book over any digital alternative is that it doesn't require power supply to be functional, and that's not a minor advantage in some situations such as, your ultimate bug out cabin. Also, you can burn them, carve them to hide something, or write stuffs on them if need be, and a couple of other tricks like that, such as poor man's armor in prison and such.

Now that aside, I find books not handy at all. You always have to hold them open and turn pages... The only alternative is to torture them to split them open and that's when they get damaged... I'm talking about pocket books. Big ass hard cover books, encyclopædia universalis style don't have that problem of maintaining themselves open while laid on a table because of their size and weight, but then size and weight... A library weights tons, it's not handy at all, you can't carry that around in your pocket or bag.

So on top of the mini wrestling position you have to constantly maintain while reading a book, it's generally not easy on the eyes especially after hours of reading, and there's little you can do to correct that, hence why most book worms end up with glasses after a while...

Over the course of my life, while what I've read on screen, html pages, articles, documentation, and pdf also, could easily be measured in miles, plural, what I've read on paper books, would certainly be inferior to a quarter of a mile

Did I mention that ctrl+f doesn't work in paper books?