UK Daily Telegraph "Ebooks will make authors soulless, just like their product"

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Not to mention Harlan Ellison.

I wouldn't count Harlan Ellison. He hates everything.

[corroonb]

I don't see why there is automatically this assumption that just because one supports ebooks, one must necessarily dislike paper books.

From a purely financial viewpoint paper books are superior (if space is not a huge problem). They will be readable for decades, have no format, no DRM, are easy to share and annotate, and cheap to access. No expensive device is required to use them. Storage is one of the few advantages ebooks have other than the environmental argument and perhaps adjustable font size. Piracy is far easier with ebooks also (whether that is a good or bad thing to you).

I like ebooks but I'm not about to discard my hundreds of paper books, many of which are valuable and impossible to reproduce in ebook format. They are physical objects as well as being 'data' as their physical presence pleases me nearly as much as their contents. Only some paper books are of this quality though, other don't lose much in ebook format. I have signed first editions, one of which (a Noam Chomsky) I treasure.

We read books for what’s inside them, but there’s something inexpressibly pleasurable about the look, touch, even the smell, of a beautiful book.

I know many people are rather unsentimental about paper books or any books for that matter. I am not.

I didn't mean this to turn into a better argument for the continued use of paper books but it has. Please note am I not a luddite and I use my reader regularly and enjoy it.