How do you prefer to read novels?

[angus]

Hard for novels and textbooks and the Book of Mormon.  Soft but well bound for travel guides.  Rough Guides have better text, but Lonely Planet is bound better, so that's what I buy.  I've never looked into those electronic things.  I don't even carry my mobile phone on me most of the time, and I never check my email when I'm on vacation.  I can't imagine wanting an electronic device of any kind except my dive computer.  Well, and I also sometimes carry around a small digital pH meter and a couple of calculators.  But no electronic book thingies.  I actually write with a pencil in my journal.  I think I'm the last one to still do that.  I look around sometimes at a coffeeshop and notice everyone else with thinkpads, ipads, ipods, laptops, kindles, quoogles, and the like.  I'm sitting there like a douchebag with a pencil and an old-fashioned notebook scribbling my thoughts.  That's okay.

[angus]

I like books as physical objects. I find them beautiful...

Also, as John pointed out, if you have a shelf full of them your neighbors will think you are literate.