Will E-Readers Ever Completely Replace Traditional Paper Books

Will paper books ever disappear? My answer is a big fat emphatic NO! Paper books will never disappear. To me the thought of no paper books makes me want to weep and stand in the street and scream use your kindle, use your nook, use your ebook but never ever give up your paper books.

While a kindle and other technology will allow all of us to download almost any and all new and old books within sixty seconds and while it may be much easier to travel with a kindle or other kind of ebook reader instead of seven hardcovers and three paperbacks and four magazines so that you make sure you do not run out of reading materials on your vacation nothing will ever replace the feel and joy of browsing through a bookstore, picking up books, looking at their covers, reading the book jackets and reviews, buying the books and then going home and putting them on your bed side table, or in your overflowing bookcase or stacked on the floor next to the dogs bed.

Paper books are solid. They have a beginning and a middle and an end. They become a part of you and your home. They help to define you to your guests who pass through your house and look at your bookshelves. Your interests are in full display. Books become pieces of your personality and while the words on an ebook may be the exact same words in a paper book the paper book takes on a life of it's own. If read in the bathtub (which you should NOT do with an electronic reader under any circumstances, electrocuting yourself is not the way you want to finish a book) may puff out and expand. A paper book that is left on the porch make change color and always open to the same page if the book has been left in the same position for a number of hours. Kindles and other ereaders are clean and concise. They do not change over time they do not become your friends.

While you can make notes about what you are reading on your kindle or other ebook reader the words are not in your handwriting. They do not truly become part of the book they amend the books but do not become a true intimate like the words do with a paper book. While you may be able to go through your kindle reading list and remember where you read the book and what you read you cannot pick up an actual book and flip through it and smell it and really go back to the time and place in your life where you read the book. You cannot decorate your shelves with your kindle nor can you walk by a shelf with a kindle and look at your books all of the ones that you have read. You cannot see your accomplishment right before your eyes.

Technology will continue to give us options for reading and listening to books and some of this technology will open up a new world for many who may not be able to read due to disabilities but the Kindle and other ereaders will never, should never be allowed to totally and completely eliminate the paper book. For most of us who love to read two of the best parts are opening a brand new book as you hold it in your hand, you crack the spine and you get excited about where you are going to be led. Another part of the reading experience that I never want to lose is reading the last few sentences and then closing the book and holding it for a minute and remembering the gift that has just been transferred from the writer to the reader.

So get the Kindle or other ereader but make a commitment that you will never truly give up the pleasure of bringing home a new book.