There's pros and cons to getting either format. But that's not what this post is about. In this post I want to share the criteria I use, to determine whether to buy a printed copy of a book, or the eBook version of it.

That criteria revolves around the contents of the book. The question I ask myself is, “Are the contents of this book subject to change in the future?”

For instance, fantasy books like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit, the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series of books, the contents of these books are static. Meaning they are not going to change decades from now. These are the kinds of books that I want to buy a printed copy of.

On the contrary, books that are subject to change in the future, should be bought as eBooks. The best examples of these are books on the topic of Software Development and Health/Nutrition.

Software Development is an ever evolving profession. Every couple of years, we get updated versions of programming languages (if not new programming languages), new frameworks, new design patterns, new development stacks, etc... A book that you have now on say, ReactJS or .NET 6, will more than likely be obsolete 10 years from now. In fact, .NET 6 is already being replaced by .NET 8 which came out recently.

It is the same thing with medical books, or books on Health and Nutrition. There's almost always something new in the field of medicine and nutrition. Hence, an authoritative book that you buy now, might become outdated when new discoveries are made years into the future. Which is why, I buy the eBook versions of these kinds of books.

So, there you have it. An easy way to determine whether to pick up a printed copy or eBook version of a book. Buy the printed copy for books whose contents will remain static. Buy the eBook versions for books whose content are subject to change in the future.

Tags: #Books #Reading

This idea, if memory serves me right, came from the book “How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers” by Sönke Ahrens.

If you're not familiar with the PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) space, this book is recommended reading for anyone wanting to get into Zettelkasten or PKM in general. And so of course I read it and tried to incorporate what I've learned from the book into my note taking process.

This idea though, of not having to re-read source material because you took down notes correctly the first time, goes against another idea I ran into recently from James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) — that idea is to actively re-read books. James argues that great books are worth re-reading. And you know what, I agree with him.

It's true. Great books are worth re-reading. But it also goes beyond that. When you re-read a book, you are not the same person that you were the first time you read that book. Life moves on. We experience new things. And then we learn from those new experiences. By the time you read that book a second or third time, there's a great chance that you will learn something new, or find a new interpretation for something you've read before.

So all those times I felt like a failure because I had to re-read a book, because apparently I didn't take down enough notes, now I see those as folly. It's perfectly fine for me and everyone else to re-read a book.

Tags: #Books #Reading #Notetaking

What kind of contract do you opt into when reading a physical book? What about reading a blog? Or watching a YouTube video? Or what about consuming content through social media news feeds?

The simplest contract can be had with physical books. You buy the book and you can read it anytime you want. The book will not try to harvest your data, or serve you ads, or track your habits, or build an online profile out of your online activities. The book will be there for you to read, when you want to read it. It is as simple a contract as can be.

On the other hand, using say your smartphone to read books, blog posts, essays is a totally different contract. Now you're exposed to ads. Now your behavior is being tracked. Now your data is getting mined, etc... All sorts of things happen behind the scenes, some of which we most likely don't even want to be involved in.

It's a good reminder to re-examine the contracts that we are entering into, when we choose to consume information the way that we do today.

Tags: #Bookmarks #Books