Books , a thing of the past ?

[Teddy_boy]

Seems the books popularity is fading . Major job losses in U.S. and E-books selling 3 to 1 with paper books.

[emmie]

Not for me, a decent book and i am away in the land of lost dreams,
i wouldn't get that same feeling carrying around a bit of plastic of whatever they are made of, never buy paperback only hard cover, that way they last.

[starone]

I love reading and am so glad I have my sight and my mind to enable me to enjoy it. I cannot remember a time when I did not have my nose in a book. There would be no more browsing around the book section of the charity shops or even book shops. I don't think I would like that. The only thing good about it is there would be less trees cut down for the paper required.

[marval]

I am not sure I would want to replace a book with a computerised gadget. You can't beat the look and feel of a book. I am like Star, I like looking at books in charity shops.

[Mosaic]

I never tried an e-reader and I'm open to suggestions, but I think I can get lots of books at current prices on amazon / charity chops before I approach the cost of an e-reader. And I quite like the looks of a bookshelf.

[venator]

We bought 3 Kindles a couple of months ago.

I couldn't get used to mine, so when the screen developed a fault, it went back.

Wife & daughter love theirs, and buy Kindle books online.

In the past, we have had bookcase clearouts and given away hundreds of books - last year, filled a Rangr Rover boot 3 times for the local donkey sanctuary - the only people accepting large quantities of books.

[jake-the-peg]

Are you sure about that?

http://www.engadget.c...oks-decline-in-every/

Says e-books are trippling every year that's not the same thing - when you start from a low base that's not so tough.

Here's the proper figures:

http://www.davidderri...ake-trade-paperbacks/

E-Books: $90.3 M
Adult Trade Paperbacks: $81.2 M
Adult Hardcover: $46.2 M
Mass-Market Paperbacks: $29.3 M


It's impressive true but I'm afraid you've been a victim of Amazon's PR men

They've split up the figures in the first story to make them hard to follow and used impressive language but E-books have overtaken paperBACKS not PaperBOOKS

[redman41]

Nothing like a good Book, electronic gadgetry will never replace the written word. What would we do without our Libraries ?

[jno]

most of the books I buy are pictorial - big photos (coffee table books and the like). Kindles, and even full-size computer screens, are nowhere near able to show pictures as well. This may change.

[B00]

Afraid the Kindle has taken over an actual book in Chez Boo. I adore my Kindle and would download a book now way before i even contemplated buying one.

I dont see the demise of books as a shame, as long as we're still reading and enjoying stories it doesn't matter to me how we do it. It's just a sign of progress I guess.

[Wrongn3mber]

"Nothing like a good Book, electronic gadgetry will never replace the written word. What would we do without our Libraries ?"

They will eventually become museums and books collector items, books take up space and libraries need to be manned. The e books takes theses two out of the equation and you can/will be able to download whole libraries of books and eventually films/programs as we go on and they perfect it. Older folk will like books for it's nostalgic qualities but the future generations will only know e books.

[ChuckFickens]

Books are just the latest thing for the we can't move on brigade to go on about. They said it about vinyl records, DVDs, the transistor, the motor car... it's been going on for as long as people have been inventing something to take the place of another thing that people romanticise about.

[jake-the-peg]

I think that's a bit unfair Chuck!

Electronic books have some serious downsides.


-Haven't seen a colour one yet

-Have yet to have a paperback run out of charge on me.

- Get a paperback wet or sandy on the beach it's no big deal

- I have books from 30 years ago - will the formats still be compatible then?

- Can you lend someone your copy of a book? or pass it on when you've read it? - oh you don't think that's occurred to the publishers do you?

and many more

This isn't the same as DVD replacing videos - It's more like trying to replace TV with YouTube

I think we're some way off of that

[ChuckFickens]

I agree that as they are in their early days there are still issues to be ironed out. but to address your points...

colour e-readers are already with us, but are generally based on TFT screens at the moment, colour e-ink is out but still in it's early days, it will improve and become more mainstream over the next year or so.

The kindles charge lasts about a month! if it runs out on you then you only have yourself to blame, but, battery life will improve as battery technology does.

It's not hard to make electrical equipment splash and dust proof and I'd much rather get a splash proof e-reader wet than a book, ink runs on books, it doesn't on screens!

You can loan kindle books for a period of 14 days and they disappear from your reader and appear on the other persons, but any problems with this aspect of it is due to licensing, not a restriction of the format and again expect this to improve as the format becomes more main stream... any media format has to be consumer driven otherwise it won't work so the consumers will get what they want eventually.

You also say

"This isn't the same as DVD replacing videos - It's more like trying to replace TV with YouTube"

That's going to happen too, it's already starting, just look at netflix, you rent your movie and it's available to be streamed to you.

Sure a lot of aspects of digital media are in early days... but it is going to happen and it will happen with music, movies, books, newspapers.... times are a'changing whether you like it or not.

[jno]

do you think books will ever take over from papyrus? I love the feeling of holding pulped reeds in my hand, slowly unscrolling it to read the carefully hand-written heiroglyphics. But these horrible mass-produced books, they don't feel special at all.

[bednobs]

there is space for both at the moment. Kindle has taken over in the bednobs' household too i'm afarid

[ChuckFickens]

I'd also say one of the biggest plus point of e-readers over books is, Kids these days are more likely to pick up an e-reader than they are a book and if combining technology and books gets more kids reading again that has to be a good thing.

[ChuckFickens]

LOL, jno...

I still prefer stone tablets... nothing lasts quite like them:)

[dr b]

Here in the US, there is an E-reader called the Nook, made by Barnes and Noble, a "traditional" bookstore. It is in color. You can lend books to other Nook owners. The charge lasts for a month (if you turn the Wi-fi off). It also has a browser that runs on Android and makes a decent tablet PC for simple web browsing.

But I would not want to get it wet! So, we're getting there.

[lankeela]

Most of my books are reference, and I love to browse the shelves and pick one out for a quick look through, and this often leads me to looking up something in another. Ok for novels maybe, but my books are precious and I can't see a kindle ever replacing them