Gadgets!

Well, tonight on the news they did a "filler" story.
CUE DRAMATIC MUSIC......" Books are on the way out"

Sorry, the way they presented the story was funny. They gave the example of videos giving way to DVD's, Walkmans to mp3 players and i pods. Apparently books will be superseded by e-books, these wonderful machines can store up to 160 full length novels. Sounds good you might think, you can take this e-book with you wherever you go. It is only the size of a standard paperback, and ...if you finished your book, well it can store 160, so you wouldn't run out of reading material, ever again, or would you?
These are what I see as the drawbacks. The experts say that you should take a est from working at a PC, handheld games, etc, so surely the same applies to the e-book. And something else, it must work on some kind of battery. So, you are just getting to a really interesting part of the book..........
and the battery fails. Wouldn't that just annoy you? It would me.

I think it would be a nice "gadget"to have, but I'll stick with the real thing. After all, there are still orchestras, and musicians, even though there is a huge range of recorded music. And despite digital cameras people still use "real" cameras. And I do like to have a book, and as the presenter pointed out, you would serious damage your e-book if you read in the bath, and accidentally dropped it in.

And another last thought to leave you with, wouldn't it take the pleasure out of having a good old browse in a bookshop, carefully picking your next book?