I am pretty firmly in the "I like holding a physical book" camp, but I have tried all of these mediums. I don't often read e-books, but I do have a Kindle Paperwhite. I do recognize the advantages of e-books including light weight, you can carry hundreds of books with you, you can read it at night, and adjust the font size, type, color etc... All of this is true, but physical books still have one distinct advantage over e-books, feel & smell aside. You'll never open a physical book and see that annoying "dead battery" symbol! For me e-books affect the pacing of a book in that I have a hard time gauging how fast I'm reading an e-book. With a physical book I can just turn the book on it's edge and see how far into I am and visually gauge how quickly I'm getting through it. With an e-book I often feel like I'm swiping and swiping and not making much progress. On the other hand, I can see how e-books could make door-stopper books, the fantasy books my husband reads, less intimidating for some people. Instead of looking at a huge heavy book, you just see the pages in front of you. If you don't see how many more pages you have to go you might not get discouraged as easily. I have also had a patron say they like reading e-books on their tablet because their hands shake, They set up the tablet in front of them and be able to read without holding onto it.
I listen to audio books a bit more often than I read e-books. Specifically, I listen to e-audio books at work. I listen to them while I'm doing inventory, sometimes while I'm shelving or shelf reading or doing other work where I'm not at the circulation desk. I haven't tried playing with the playback speed, but I have co-workers that like to boost the speed. I would imagine that would affect the how one would perceive the pace of a book. As far as appeal factors go, Mediatore says "readers find that choosing what to read with their ears can depend heavily on who is doing the reading to them..." (2003) To that end I've also heard co-workers talk about how the narrator can make or break an audio book. Author's who read their own books, obviously there are exceptions (ahem..Wil Wheaton), don't seem to popular with my co-workers. I'm still relatively new to the audio book world so I don't have a lot of experience with different narrators yet. I will say I tried to listen to the first Harry Potter book, (unpopular opinion alert!!!) and I just couldn't do it. I know everyone else loves that narrator, but his voices choices were so different from the ones from the movies that it was just too distracting for me. I imagine other appeal factors could be single narrator vs. a full cast, sound effects/music vs. just narration, or even CDs vs. an e-audio book. Another appeal is for those with physical disabilities. One of my best friends is blind and getting braille books is much more difficult than getting an audio book. Additionally we have a patron that I believe had cancer and had to have radiation therapy and now has a hard time focusing on written words, but can listen to audio books without trouble.
I think it's fantastic that technology has given us all these tools bring reading to more people than ever. However you prefer to read and whatever you prefer to read, as a librarian I'm just thrilled that you are reading!
References:
Mediatore, K. (2003). Reading with Your Ears: Readers’ Advisory and Audio Books. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 42(4), 318–323
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