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Comment by ryanfreeborn | Hacker News Reader

I started reading the physical copy and switched to kindle after a few hundred pages. I know it's not the "pure" way to read it but it improved my experience considerably. Not only does it make the book very mobile, but flipping back and forth between the footnotes is way easier.

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If there's ever a book that I found better on an e-reader, Infinite Jest is it. The movement between the endnotes was so much more fluid and not having the bulk of the book itself was a huge plus. Still have a physical copy for the at home reading (been a bit since I read and want to go for a third go around) but the e-reader experience felt like the experience the book was made for, but preempted.

Oh that's interesting. I bought the hard copy specifically because I assumed it would be easier to flip around the footnotes. Maybe I'll give it a shot then.

It might depend on the ebook reader you're using. I'm using Marvin for iOS and while there's a bit of loading, it's pretty quick.

Speaking of Marvin, it's by far my favorite ebook reader. One thing I rather like, specifically in relation to IJ, is that Marvin has a journal function that automatically tracks all the words you've looked up and the stuff you've highlighted or commented on.

Seconding the Marvin recommendation. If you need an iOS ebook reader, look no further, and you can read Kindle books with it too, after downloading them via a Kindle app and shoveling them through a Calibre-powered format conversion.

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