A friend showed me her new Kindle electronic reading gizmo the other day. I thought, hmmm, well, ok - maybe it'll catch on in time. It's easier to read than a pc screen, you can increase print size etc, and she told me that there was a huge number of books available to download.
I thought no more about it until a few days later, when I was reading a 600 page novel with fairly small print, impossible to prop up to read at breakfast, and a bit of a strain on my ancient eyes. So I got on line to do a bit of research (only half an excuse needed here to get a nice new gadget). I discovered that there are over 775,000 books available for Kindle. Not the book I am currently reading, and none of the books I am interested in reading next.
It's an impressive sounding number, but less than a drop of a drop in the ocean of published books in the world. There are 200,000 new books published each year in the UK for instance. For this reason alone I think it's going to be a while until electronic reading gizmos are a realistic alternative to actually opening a book. The choice is extremely limited - classic literature (out of copyright, so free) and best sellers have priority it seems. I daresay there will be more and more less mainstream books available as time goes on - but I doubt I'll see the end of the paper book in my lifetime.
A pity - I can definitely see the advantages of the Kindle, and I'd like to have one.