Every technological innovation has been fretted over. E-books are inevitable–cost effective, green, accessible. The market fears them; rightly so.

But all is not lost.

There will always be a need for skilled craftspeople to purge the literary dross, saving us readers time and money. It’s going to take quite a realignment, to shift to e-books. I just don’t see how we can corral this animal now that it’s out of the barn.

I’m a big ebook fan, and after reading your article, I realise why I like it so much – less book weight when I go on holidays.

Anyone remember PeanutPress? That was when I discovered ebooks. PeanutPress was then purchased by Palm and became PalmReader. Then it was purchased by Motricity and became eReader. Recently, it was purchased by Fictionwise, but continues (for now) to be eReader.

I read my ebooks using eReader Pro in my Palm TX and will continue to do so as the TX allows me to do other things besides reading ebooks. It may not be as sophisticated as a dedicated ebook reader, but it works for me. And that’s always the important thing – not what is popular, but what works for me.

I don’t find the comparison very compelling.

Photography (“traditional” or digital) aims at the same end product – an image viewed on a screen or printed on paper.

Books aren’t that way. Regardless of how it started, the end product could be an electronic thing needing a piece of technology to read it; or one of at least two quite distinct paper manifestations – an “airport paperback” or something which has value oas a “thing” (typically a hardback).

I believe that both “end points” have a place, and that both will survive.

When e-books are larger, lighter, cheaper and color I believe first print newspapers, then magazines and finally books will fall to e-books. We’re not there yet.

Mike

A Kindle owner.

Oh, I think that there are quite a bunch of reasons, many tied to specific types of books.

For some types, a hardback is a pleasurable thing to have. It’s an object, a possession in a way that no ebook will ever be. Someone gave me a hardback for Christmas which I asked them to autograph for me. Tough to do with an ebook.

If the book includes a lot of pictures, graphs, and other non-textual material, I find it easier and more effective to deal with on paper.

And no ebook reader I’ve seen or read about can match a Real Book for the convenience of going back a couple of pages, putting my finger in as a marker while I check something, and that sort of thing. Yes, I know you can move around quickly, but I don’t find it to be as effective.

A book often shows me much more material at one view – two full pages which (particularly if it’s a sizable book) will have more in view at one time than the ebook reader does.

I could go on. If you’d restricted your comments to mass-market entertainment books (as read on a plane to pass the time) and purely “practical” books (where some of the technical features confer real benefits), I would have agreed with you.

But for books overall? Not in my opinion.

So I have a different take on this from Evan. I am having trouble imagining why I would ever read a paper book again. I still need books on my PALM (because there are times I have it and don’t have the Kindle AND because I can read in bed when my wife says “lights out.”) But I don’t see any virtue to the extra weight and two-hands requirement of a paper book.

Kindles are GREEN. Getting the NY Times and Wall Street Journal daily generates about more than 500 pounds of paper per year to be manufactured, shipped, printed, shipped, sent to recycling, shipped and processed for recycling.

I find reading newspapers on the Kindle is faster than on paper or the web – probably because I don’t get distracted by ads.