We have a Kindle too but we want to keep a hard copy of some books so we have a small bookcase. It's pretty simple and can be built by anyone with minimal skills. To keep books from flying all over there has to be a lip on the bottom of each shelf and a rail across the shelves.Make the rail at a height so that the books will still be able to slide in and out easily.
Not just the kindle, but any reader works. I have a Sony Reader with slots for 2 memory cards. I have one, 8 gb card plugged in. It is 2/3 empty, and yet it has over 3000 books on it. For most of my life, thru many moves, I carried my library of loved favorites, over 1000 books that I loved enough to reread periodically. Now, I full time in my RV. 99% of my favorites, I was able to find and download digitally, along with many new books and authors. I keep them all on my laptop, and periodically upload some to my Reader. Now, I am never without a book!
inflt48 wrote: Not just the kindle, but any reader works. I have a Sony Reader with slots for 2 memory cards. I have one, 8 gb card plugged in. It is 2/3 empty, and yet it has over 3000 books on it. For most of my life, thru many moves, I carried my library of loved favorites, over 1000 books that I loved enough to reread periodically. Now, I full time in my RV. 99% of my favorites, I was able to find and download digitally, along with many new books and authors. I keep them all on my laptop, and periodically upload some to my Reader. Now, I am never without a book!
I also agree about any reader. You couldn't give me a Kindle because of Amazon's walled garden (you have to use their reader to read their books and their reader will not read e-pubs, the most popular e-book format other than Kindle's) and I will not purchase DRM infested e-books. I have well over a thousand books I would not be able to take with me when I start full timing (too much space and weight) so I've been cutting the spines off the books (yes, I cringe when I do that but it's that or get rid of the book) and scanning them to PDFs (I have a nice high speed duplexing ADF scanner). Since running them through OCR, correcting the errors, then converting them to e-pubs would take many times longer than just scanning to PDF, it's easier to just leave them as PDFs and use an e-book reader that is able to handle them. E-books are far easier to access, catalogue, and store than real books.
The major brands, like the Kindle, do not handle PDFs well. I have a JetBook Lite that does a good job. It also uses four AA batteries that can be easily field changed so I don't have to worry about remembering to recharge an internal battery. I carry spares in my purse for my cameras, etc. so I always have batteries available. I use recargeable Sanyo Eneloops so I get good battery life.
I have my 32" TV patched into my computer so I can also read e-books from my TV screen.
I personally don't give the north end of a southbound furry rodent about the heft, feel, or smell of dead tree books. E-book readers are so much more convenient.
My Nook works great, and the wife likes the fact that I donated 85 paperbacks to the park we were in. She got two more shleves of storage available!
I really like the fact that I can take my 200 books to any "waiting room" situation and be content to read what I want to read.
* This post was
edited 04/03/12 11:00am by Dog Folks *
Camping Rig:
2005 Dodge 3500 - Dually- Cummins
2006 Outback 27 RSDS
We also have with us two "fur babies". A Basset Hound and a Chihuahua mix. Both are rescue dogs.
We keep some books with us in a cabinet, but we did get a nook as well, just for this specific reason. We tend to trade more books now that we fulltime, don't "collect" many, but a few do stay on-board. I did cull through my cookbooks and made copies of the recipes I use - I don't like nook cookbooks - I prefer paper copies of recipes - and that helped save some space & weight.
My wife and I each have a Pandigital 7" tablet that we primarily use for e-reading. Between the tablets and those stored on our notebooks, we have several hundred books to choose from, plus thousands more available from our public library, Amazon/Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and the many free e-book sites on the web. We do carry six or seven dead tree reference books with us, but seldom any others.
I'm with you, Libertarian. I need real books, particularly if it's something I use for reference or other content. I mainly read fiction in bed before going to sleep, and for that I need paperbacks - hardbacks are too unwieldy lying on my side in bed. For now, I'm keeping books in a couple of those square folding baskets called "cubicles". Most of them are fabric and pretty flimsy, but I found some that are larger and more substantial. They fit neatly against the wall under the dinette - there is room there since there are only two of us.
I would love to have a bookshelf like the one pictured by TonyandKaren, if I could pry DH away from his model airplanes long enough to build one, and if I could find a wall substantial enough to hold it where I wouldn't be running into it all the time. Many of the walls in our MH are too flimsy to securely hold the shelf and the books over a long period. When we lived on a boat, we added teak bookshelves to hold all the books we didn't want to put into storage, but that would never work in the MH. If we ever went full-time, I would shop more extensively for a MH that had more efficient storage, like a boat, but I'm not sure such a thing exists landside.
FOR KINDLE FANS:
My husband bought a original Kindle and downloads lots of books, but he reads them on his smartphone rather than on the Kindle. It sits idle. He can read in a restaurant, on the throne, or waiting for me in a parking lot without taking another device along. He even did that when he had a relatively small-screen smartphone, but now he has a Samsung Stratosphere with a much larger screen (still a phone, not a tablet) and reads very comfortably.
I'm 73 but I'm in 21st century, DW and myself have Kendles, no more books stacked everwhere. Just put your Kendle in your Rv and the world of books is at hand....
2010 Jayco Eagle Super Lite 31.5RLDS Fifth Wheel, 2006 Ford 350 PSD SRW, long Bed, Champion 2000i inverter Generator and a Champion 3500/4000 Gen.
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