How did you go from not liking reading books on your iPad to enjoying the experience?

I have what was a Kindle 3g, and is now called Kindle Keyboard. I can count the number of times on both hands that I've needed the keyboard-- it's too kludgy as a web-browser to bother with. I will add my voice to this chorus as we sing the praises of e-ink. Device nerd that I am, I was also one of those "I enjoy the heft of a book too much to switch." I was wrong about that. My iPad (the first) is too heavy, and, lacking 3G, too useless. I use it when I travel only, becasue it's great on a plane.

Nook hasn't been mentioned, I don't think. You can mostly only read on it, it doesn't have a horrible backlight, and it's like flipping through the pages yourself. That's my recommendation - look into Nook, especially the non-fancy older ones or new ones that keep backlight eye problems into account (these exist).

Thanks for the suggestions. It looks like I will need to either get a Kindle or something of that ilk or give up trying to read ebooks (I have the Ipad 2, but I am not willing to shell out the money to get an Ipad 3 any time soon). I do appreciate all the suggestions about reading classic fiction and using the library instead of published material, but I feel that I know how to filter through that material and find what I want; it's the self-published material that feels completely like the Wild West. And I am interested to see what's out there - some of it has to be good, right?

I don't read on the iPad because I do not like the form-factor. It's not a one-handed device and it's just too heavy. However, I've only had a Nexus 7 for a short time and have already finished one book and am quarter way into two others. It weighs just 3/4s of a pound and is easily held in one hand without strain. I set the background to black and the text to white and experience no eye strain.

Before you go out and spring for an eInk reader, or in the meantime anyway, try optimizing your settings on the iPad for maximum readability. Try these things:Turn the brightness of the screen down as low as you can while still being able to comfortably make out the words. Set the background to a darkish, semi-saturated green (similar to Ask Metafilter green, actually – something like 60/100/60 RGB or 3C643C in hex would be good) and the text color to a light, grayish brown color (like maybe 180/180/150 aka B4B496). Set the line spacing to 1.25 to give the words a little more space to breathe.Make sure you're using a high-legibility font. I reccomend Georgia for a serif font, or Verdana for sans-serif, depending on what is easier on your eyes.Set your font size to something considerably bigger than you would use for paper. Something like 14pt or 16pt might be about rightThose are some guidelines for enhancing readability and reducing eyestrain on LCD screens that work well for me and that are borne out through design research. I too normally have a hard time reading for long periods on normal screens, but I can burn through whole novels on my laptop if I set up the e-reader just right and turn the screen brightness down. Your mileage may vary, but it costs nothing to try.

I take the bus to work. And I do cardio after my weight lifting workout. Both are places my cell phone follows me and where a physical book does not. Andrew Tanenbaum's physical version of Computer Networks would not be an enjoyable experience reading on the bus. The e-book version was an enjoyable experience.

I ended up reading like a machine on my ipad once I used Stanza which has a snazzy function of reversing text and background so I can read white on black. Stanza also has the function of dimming or brightening with just a vertical finger stroke down or up. Otherwise, it was a pain to read in iBooks and the Kindle app. Stanza has made reading all my trash romance novels a joy again. I use other apps to handle PDFs which I am still trying to optimize my workflow on the iPad. One of the nice things if you decide to use the iPad is the full integration of Dropbox and Google Drive. I would not be able to handle my large library if I could not structure and search my archives cleanly.

The think that makes my Nook Color screen bearable for reading long periods is a matte-style screen protector - just a cheap kind from an off-brand seller. When I turn the brightness all the way down and set it to white-on-black it feels almost like an e-ink device. Definitely worth a try before buying a whole new device.

Have you tried http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stanza/id284956128?mt=8? Most iPad reader apps have clumsy layouts (impossible to view anything but a 2-column layout in horizontal orientation; unadjustable margins, etc.), but Stanza's layout is mostly configurable, making reading less awkward. I must note that, though I make the above suggestion, it wasn't enough for me—the iPad is simply too heavy to use as an ereader. Propped up on a table, fine, but impossible when I'm sitting in a chair. I don't mind the backlit screen (I'd previously been reading tons of books on a kindle fire) but the iPad's form factor and clunky apps killed it for me. I might try again when/if the "iPad mini" comes out.