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I miss vellum. There's something about words written on animal skin that engages my senses in a way that words on paper can't. In particular, I miss the books written on human skin. But that's probably just me....
Okay, seriously:
There is nothing essentially pleasant about the smell of book paper. Nobody buys "book paper" cologne or room freshener. The only reason the smell appeals to people is because of the association with the pleasurable act of reading.
Same with turning pages. If someone receives pleasure purely from the act of turning pages, without the reading experience, that person is insane.
These things bring pleasure only through association with the pleasure of reading. Certainly people who have trouble reading, such as the dyslexic kid who struggles through school, aren't likely to have these pleasant associations.
I was pleasantly surprised by the ereading experience. I doubt I'm the only one. My wife loved it instantly!
As more people try it, more people will find pleasant associations with ereading.
About hardbacks enduring and becoming valuable and paperbacks being forgotten: nonsense! Look at how valued the old pulp magazines of yesteryear are today! In fact, it is very often the most common and disposable items of the past that become the collector's items. Taken for granted, tossed into the trash, the discards are doomed to intransience; those items that manage somehow, miraculously, to escape their fate as trash, as detritus, as landfill, they become all the more precious. Anybody got an extra copy of Action Comics #1 sitting around?
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