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BTS on Hot Ones!

✨Here is this week’s book haul—makes up for last week’s no book haul (except for one singular preorder that came in!)✨

"Does he read books?" I'm sure most people would ask.

Yes, he does. He's not a cartoon character after all.

And since he reads them, then he probably reads e-books or his AI reads them out loud to him? The majority indeed think so, according to this poll.

But the majority is wrong again. Because throughout the films, we see Tony surrounded by paper books. Lots of paper books:

“The bookcases were filled with physics, engineering and scientific books to reflect Tony’s pursuits, as well as novels and other subjects that the writers informed us would be of more interest to Pepper...”

And, ta-da, an entire library that we've never seen, but which existed in the Malibu mansion:

From Marvel Studios Cross-Sections book.

Thus, we clearly see that he had entire libraries of paper books, most of which are his own. We see him using them.

What we don't see is him using e-books or listening to audiobooks.

It's been suggested that he might listen to audiobooks while working. I've already covered his preferences for when he turns music on and when he needs silence while working. When he's actually working, he needs to be undistracted. If you think about it, an audiobook is a far worse source of distraction than music. We might also recall this scene from IM 1:

How do you guys imagine him immersed in his work and at the same time following the plot of a book? Like this?

Audio book: - I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket - which had the feel of a biohazard suit - and headed out into the rain. Tony, while calibrating Mk 7: - What?

And we can confidently say he wasn't a fan of e-books, since he was so hung up on paper ones. It's much easier and faster to get the digital book you need, especially for him, but as you can see, he was used to burying himself in piles of paper tomes.

P.S. As a bonus:

For Tony's version from Midnight Suns game, the "Reading by the Fire" activity is one of his favorites.