I’ve had this conversation in my head ever since I was in the hospital last year. I brought it up several times but it’s back circling my brain and I don’t know what to tell myself. Should I buy physical copies of books or are my purchases of e-books suffice?
My voices are telling me I should buy my collection in paper/hard-back form in case I wind up in the hospital again am not allowed to use electronics (like in intensive care). However, I’m not planning on going to the hospital any time soon. Yet, I didn’t plan on going to the hospital last year when I went either, it just sort of happened when I went to acute care one night after having a hard time catching my breath.
I’m terrified of returning to the hospital, it is not a place I enjoyed. A nurse there was really mean to me because I believe when I told them I had schizoaffective disorder she and her three friends thought I was an easy target for verbal bullying. After all it was their word against a person who admitted to being on the Schizophrenia spectrum. Now my voices are telling me I should have a back up plan so next time I don’t have to lay in bed and watch TV all day I can have mom and dad bring me books to read instead.
I have a few solid books yeah but nothing like my kindle collection which is over 1200 books in a wide array of topics. I like to buy a lot of these books when they’re either on sale or free for a short time on Amazon. I rarely buy any e-books over 10 bucks unless I really like the author, topic, or have heard great things about it and really want to read it. So a few time s a year I buy myself a good size amount of Amazon gift-cards and download my books…because well I like to read.
The only con about my voice’s theory on buying physical copies is not all books are available for physical copy buys, The other draw back is I live in a small apartment and I don’t have much space for said books. Thirdly well I’ve gotten so used to my Kindle I really don’t like flipping through pages of real books, my skin gets dry and easily gets paper-cuts. I constantly have to search for book-markers. I need some kind of light on to read the pages as supposed to my back light already on my kindle. Should I spend the money I don’t really have on buying physical copies of books for the small chance I may wind up back in the hospital? Or, save my money and spend it on other things I want and can use right now?
If this is a really big concern for you, you should ask your parents to buy you some physical books to read in the event that you end up back in the hospital. You could set aside some money for it if you’re concerned that they wouldn’t be willing or able to pay for them for you.
Or you could pick a few comfort books, ones you’d want to have on hand in that event, and just buy those.
But I really don’t think it’s necessary for you to duplicate your collection in hard copy just in case you go back to the hospital. Your voices have made this kind of argument before, about how real readers have physical books, so it sounds like they’re just changing tack now. Just ignore them.
Thank you, I’ve been trying to ignore them, it’s just hard when it plays on a loop like this all day. There are a few series I’m considering buying, which I’ve already bought on my kindle that I really like…but the thing is I’m more concerned with wasting money. I’m a limited income and I don’t want to buy something that would just sit on a shelf unused 99% of the time. Yes they sit in my kindle most of the time, but I have re-read the kindle versions a lot, my goal this year is to read as many books as possible and keep track of them on my Goodreads account, complete with an honest reader review.
There are so many “fake” reviews out there, people who simply like the author, people who read the first few books in a a series and give the whole 8 book series a stellar review when they haven’t read them all, people who absolutely hate the series for other reasons (like twilight, or say house of night both vampire series), people who hate the genre totally, people who mostly base their reviews on movies rather than the books themselves…I feel my reviews are my honest opinions on it. If I don’t like something I’m not going to sit back and say I love it for the sake of the series.
I’m debating if I want to buy these physical copies of books all at once or one series at a time. All at once would be extremely costly for me. Maybe like you said @Rhubot break it up some buy one series this month, another a next month so I’m not blowing through my entire “entertainment budget” on a bunch of books all at once.
And if push came to shove could always have mom and dad (whom I think would buy me anything, if they can) either buy something for me or even go to the library and see if they have a copy of it. Libraries are so nice to have, though its sometimes hard to get the newer/popular releases right away.
Certainly don’t buy them all at once (says the girl who just blew all her discretionary funds on three pair of hiking shoes). Just pick up a few that are most special to you and see how you feel owning them. Then decide next month if it’s worth it to you to buy more.
@sohare1981 You could purchase a physical book and then scan it to pdf of kindle format. It takes a while if you don’t have the machinery but you can do it with a digital camera
www dot instructables dod com/id/Quickly-Scan-a-Textbook-With-a-Camera/
The above shows how to make a pdf and I don’t think it is essential to use “Snapter” (which is 50USD) just the other bit of software to convert the image files to pdf.
You can OCR (read the image into a text file) using PDF-XChange (which also displays, highlights and allows commenting) and use pdf2kindle dot com to convert to kindle files. I generally just read the pdfs on a computer or tablet.
At work we have an electric guillotine that cuts the spines off books. I then just run them through a copier which scans a whole book in 5 minutes. I usually throw away the books I have scanned but you could keep the book in case you need it.
@sohare1981 I really prefer reading on my kindle. I’m like you in that I have lots of e-books that I got good deals on. It’s so much easier to just carry a kindle around then a pile of books.
You might consider purchasing the cheaper kindle reader ($80) to take with you in places where you might worry about losing a more expensive kindle. This could be an option maybe for the hospital.
Oh, I definitely agree with @Moonbeam if you’re allowed a kindle in the hospital. I’ve been under the impression that a kindle was not allowed, but if it is, a second cheap kindle is ideal.
Thank you all for your thoughts on this. I think my biggest fear is having to return to a hospital for a long period. So my voices are picking on something I myself can control, like how I spend my time there during recovery. I know if I’m ever admitted again, I wont be in charge. I hate not being in charge of my life.
So my voices pick on the one thing they know I can control, and that is mainly what I spend my time and money on outside of the hospital.
My kindle isn’t that expensive, I have the paper-white which runs about $120, and I think if they allow you to watch TV in the room, shouldn’t kindles be allowed too? Yeah at home I have them set over my wi-fi but I could always put it in air-plane mode while at the hospital or something. I don’t really plan on going back to the hospital soon.
This spring I’m going to have a lot of dentistry done and they’ve promised to sedate me (low pain tolerance and an extremely high fear of dentists but I need the work done). I may have to stay over-night in a hospital if my oxygen levels don’t bounce back right away. It’s what happened when I went in to have a polyp removed from my vocal cords. One night I think I can manage, but I’m terrified of extended stays at hospitals…because of past experiences.
So a little update, I’ve talked with this to my mom. She made an interesting suggestion as to why I’ve been having this particular problem lately. We found out my uncle (her brother) has very serious Multiple Myeloma cancer, he has fractures in his T-12 and L-2 vertebrae and had a metal rod placed in his left arm. She thinks my worry about him is manifesting itself into fears of going back to the hospital myself.
That and it was a little over a year ago when I was in the hospital for a serious case of pneumonia and bronchitis…not to mention while I was in the hospital my grandfather passed away from complications after a stroke. Though we were expecting that because he had a bad stroke about a year before he died.
So she thinks that I have all this swirling around in my head and my brain knows if I went into a hospital I wouldn’t be in control of much, yet I can control what I do out of the hospital and my voices are trying to influence that part of my life. And the stress of worrying about my oldest friend who went AWOL on me and the rest of her family after getting addicted to prescription drugs and meeting this not so great guy who I believe is trying to control her…if she hasn’t overdosed somewhere as a jane-doe… (another big fear of mine right now). I guess I’m feeling kind of hopeless and helpless about a few things and I feel like there is so much more I could and should be doing…and that is causing the voices.
So I caved in and bought two sets of series the Hunger games and House of Night. Next month I will get the Divergent series and Eclipse & Breaking Dawn as I already have Twilight and New Moon. I want a few others, but these are the main sets I want to have “just in case.” Yes after all these years, I’m still a twilight fan, the books were far better than the movies though I do like the movies too.
I’m debating if I want the Lunar chronically by Marissa Meyer in hard/paper-back…there’s also a couple of stand alone books I’m debating if I want to add to my “Just in case” but I think I’ll be satisfied with the Twilight, (four book series) House of Night (about an 15 book series), Hunger Games (3 books), and Divergent series (four books)…that’s more than enough books to read god for bid I need any more books than that.
Maybe some day if I’m ever rich, or well off at least, I can buy as many as I want but for now that will do.