Listen, I love the smell and touch of paper as much as the next person. That musty bookish smell and that brittle touch of the paper to many of us means 'a la recherche du temps perdu'. It means childhood, fond memories and a thousand evocations from happy and sad stories we have read and cherished over many years and that have sparked our imaginations.
I feel rather sad that in years to come future generations will never know the tactile and olefactory happiness of a real book. However, it will come to pass that Ebooks will become the norm as surely as each one of us here will no longer exist. Future generations will not fret about real books, because they will merely become exhibits in glass cases. They will only be bothered about the knowledge and pleasure that the reading devices and their electronically reproduced symbols can give to them. Amen.
Tommy
