Sam,
I don't read the books online. I save to a special folder in my documents folder, or dwonload to a special folder I've established within the hard drive.
Then, when I have time, I read. For books in html, I usually convert to a word doc. so I can adjust the font size and background color to make reading easier. The same can be done for anything in the PDF format.
Now, for those that say "I can not read a book like that", sit back and consider how many email/day do you read. How many web pages do you dig thru on searches, or how many webpages do you dig thru right here, and almost every day. I don't know about you, but I can get up to 50 email in 1 day, I visit 3 other discussion groups so there can be another 40-50 pages/day, depending on activity. And on major searches, as I've been undertaking recently on pre-1800 slavery, and pre-civil war documents, speeches and debates, I can easily go thru another 75+ pages a day.
So, when I have time, or am taking a break from searches, I spend time reading some of the hundreds of books I've located. Presently I'm reading Empire and Nation: John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania and Richard Henry Lee, Letters from the Federal Farmer, ed. by Forrest McDonald in PDF (In the summer of 1776 Lee authored the motion that the colonies should sever their ties with Britain, and Dickinson was among the foremost opponents of the Declaration of Independence. Eleven summers later, Dickinson helped author the Constitution, and Lee was among its foremost opponents.........As documents that shaped opinion on two critical attempts to relocate power, Dickinson’s and Lee’s letters are historically significant, but they are at least equally significant as archetypes. Dickinson’s view is historical, pragmatic, and in the Burkean sense, conservative; Lee’s is immediate, rational, and in the Jeffersonian sense, liberal.)
After I'm done with this, will finish another one by Tucker, on the Constitution and selected writings, published in 1803.
Although books like this do have drawbacks, they are still, to me, a viable method of getting hold of material I want to read. As much as buying, or borrowing books from the lib. With 1 good difference being, I can cram hundreds of books on 1 cd. They are searchable, and you can of course copy and paste to your postings.
Chuck in IL.