[QuantumIguana]

There's nothing elitist about a bookstore. It's just a store that sells books. It's open to anyone. No one is going to make you put on a suit and tie to enter the bookstore. Books aren't expensive. There are stores where you're afraid to touch anything for fear of breaking something and having to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars - but that's not a bookstore.

Fond memories of 8-tracks would be nostalgia, except for a very small number of 8-track fans, the 8-track is gone. Books aren't gone, and they probably aren't going to be gone for some time. I expect e-books to become dominant, but I don't expect the market share of paper books to shrink to the percentage that vinyl records have of the music indistry. Paper books are too far from being gone to count as nostalgia.

Paper books do have the advantage that they need no power, and can be given away, traded, loaned or sold. I can buy a used paper book cheaply, but I will have to pay full price for an e-book.

One thing I do like about bookstores is how the books are arranged. I walk into the science fiction section, and there the science fiction books are, arranged by author. When I search for an e-book, I often get results that are not at all what I am looking for.

I realize this is a website dedicated to e-books, but that doesn't change the fact that paper books have advantages too. E-books have their advantages too, of course. I grew up in a small town where the nearest bookstore was 60 miles away. E-books could have been of tremendous benefit. But paper books aren't the equivalent of black and white TVs. A black and white TV had no advantages over color TV other than price, and you're clearly getting less than with a black and white TV than with a color TV. You're not getting less with a paper book, you're getting something different. If you like what paper books offer, read paper books. If you like what e-books offer, read e-books.