They frequently cost less than ebooks, particularly if you buy them second hand. I don’t think I’ve paid more than €1 for a book (apart from rare volumes) in years. Abebooks have it all.

There's this cute little series that could be fun for a teenage girl learning French. Not that expensive, tell how much it costs at Abebooks:

https://www.amazon.fr/Angélique-5-révolte-Anne-Golon/dp/2266...

Between less than €1 and €3.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp...

You can get them for free in these things called libraries.

Libraries are an odd artifact of history. They exist today because they are an undeniable public good.

If they didn't already exist they would never be allowed to come to exist in today's world. It would be considered wholesale IP theft and people would be arguing that the very notion of the idea would be the death of creativity.

Many of the problems of smartphones are not intrinsic to the technology but are a reflection of that modern world. Many people would call that late stage capitalism, but without much of that capitalism the technology wouldn't exist.

This has turned into a ramble, I apologize.

Can't find english books as easily in libraries if you are in a non english speaking country.