It weighs less than a hardback, can store all your favourite novels and is tipped by some to do for books what the iPod did for music.
This week’s British launch of the Sony “Reader“, a gadget that holds up to 160 electronic books, has stoked a fierce debate over whether the publishing industry could finally go digital.
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has described books as “the last bastion of analogue” in a world of digital films, music and cameras.
Fans of e-books question why anyone would want to pack a bag full of holiday books when they could instead slip a neat gadget into their pocket.
They say the screens are carefully designed to avoid flicker and have muted greys, blacks and whites to make them easy on the eye.
Users can download thousands of titles from the Internet, flick through pages at the touch of a button and keep their place with an electronic bookmark. Amazon’s own e-reader, Kindle, has enjoyed better than expected sales.
Not everyone wants one, however.
Who would want to curl up on the sofa with an e-book? And who would risk reading one in the bath?
Real books don’t cost 199 pounds and don’t need batteries. They have a distinctive smell and feel. They can be dropped on the floor or loaned to a friend. They have a tactile quality that is a central part of reading.
Early reviews of Sony’s new gadget have been mixed.
“Navigation is a laborious process. You can’t flick back and forth with the ease that a physical book allows,” says Paul Gent, of the Daily Telegraph. “An e-reader, like all gadgets, is shiny, plastic, artificial. A book is pliable, organic, warm.”
The Evening Standard’s literary editor David Sexton said the device will probably appeal more to gadget lovers than book lovers.
“I still think paperbacks are a better deal,” he wrote. “You never have to plug them in and you don’t burst into tears if you drop them in the bath.”
Despite initial misgivings, people soon won’t be able to resist electronic books, writes John Sutherland in the Guardian.
“In 20 years, we won’t know how we lived without the thing,” he says. “ It’s not a storage device but a portal, a Lewisian wardrobe, opening into new worlds.”
Where do you stand in the debate? Will we see the death of traditional books or are digital readers doomed to go the way of the MiniDisc and Betamax video player?
