not in my life time i downloaded the dc comic app on my ipad it was terrible

Ah the feel of a hefty rare volume. The typeface is gorgeous, the illumination of the volume is gorgeous. The binding is classic, real leather. And it’s over 100 years old. Very, wonderful. I’m going to enjoy each minute with this old friend.

Lemme see now, I’ll download 500 free classics to my Kindle, and I can tell all my friends that “I’ve read that!”, whatever book those snooty college grads are talking about! And that’s not counting the latest dross from the NYT bestseller list! Wow!
We can do away with public libraries!!!!! What a savings.

Yup, Kindle vs. 100 year old Spurgeon. Same thing, right?

The current generations still prefer the physical books over the electronic ones for a good deal of their reading needs. Though the immediate gratification is a big lure.

The problem I see with using statistics on how many people are buying what types of books is that the people buying lots of e-books may just as likely be buying lots of physical books as well. I never hear these statistics, the comparisons or even if the comparisons are ever done. It’s entirely possible that if the younger generations get use to e-books over physical book then the printing industry might go down the toilet. Lets face it, some demand is not the same as a lot of demand.

However, books will still be printed. From time to time even those use to electronic books will print information off. We tend to be very tactile creatures. We love our sense of touch. This is a concept often overlooked by people predicting e-books overtaking physical books.

To go with JFK’s post. My father, a retired Air Force Master-Sergeant, tells us of a act that occurred in the Air Force as a way of saving money. What they did is they took all of their manuals and put them on CDs to limit the amount of money wasted on paper printing.

Of course this didn’t work. What ended up happening was that it cost more money because reading the manuals, especially when needed, was harder. So they ended up printing their own manuals. And of course this was more expensive on their own printers than from a professional printing company. I am a person if physical books disappeared I’d just print off my own from the electronic versions.

“Musty old smell of a book” ??? Geez, the dude at Amazon must have been smoking something he rolled himself! Can’t imagine anyone referring to the smell of a book as musty! The freshness of a new book being opened for the first time is great, unlike opening a new tab on my monitor! LOL. Ever try following an on-line help screen for a new program? Unless one has two monitors, one eventually PRINTS OUT the help. Yes, paper once again wins out. I have to concur with all the above comments Ron, as one technology doesn’t necessarily replace another, but rather should compliment each other. AND of course, as the years go by, the devices used to translate this stored data will become obsolete with no way to access it. Have you tried playing an old 8 track cassette lately?