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?