These days I read around one digital for each three to five physical books. The digital format has many advantages (mainly searching and hyper-linking to and from chapters) but is still not easy on eyes enough.

Even though I only read one page at a time, I realized that I feel a lot better having two facing pages open at all times. Either way, modern computer screens are a lot wider than are tall so if one page can be read comfortably two will most likely fit as well. My laptop screen is great for book reading – LCD with ClearType rocks – but its 1920x1200 resolution on a 15.4” diagonal is a bit too much. I guess if I had a 17” screen things would look better, but I’ll have to wait and see.

It’s not just the small fonts. it’s the book layout and typeface chosen. Ironically, physical books seem to have a lot better look and feel in spite (or is it because) of the fact that nothing can be changed once the text is printed.

Up until very recently, my favorite publisher was Microsoft Press; note that I am talking about look of the books and if they are easy on eyes, not about content. Microsoft books always had great rounded and quite large font, margins that are large enough and a cool font for code listings.

My new favorite is everything from the Pragmatical Programmer’s series – similar font, great book size and paper thickness and the most excellent font for code listings. The even better thing with this publisher is that they often sell the physical book and the digital (PDF) version together and that the digital version looks almost identical to the printed one.

Everyone should look at how these guys are doing it and copy it.