The end of the book as we know it?

Journalists seem so ready to ring the death knell on books. Every time a new electronic reader gizmo hits the market, articles spring up about how the book as we have known it for centuries is doomed. I know of local libraries investing in the e-book reader, only to have that model eclipsed by the next new best thing. We have heard that publishers will no longer printing books ahead. Instead, you will go into a store and select your title and *poof* it is printed and bound for you. Audiobooks - first on cassette, then on cd, then MP3 - were going to be the end of books. Then e-books evolved so that you could download to your computer and read the book, or download to your ipod and listen. The list goes on and on, and yet the printed book remains a vibrant format. There is just something about holding a book, feeling the pages, storing scraps of paper in it, being able to throw them, drop them (not library books of course), read them on the beach, in bed, in the tub, at the pool and so on and so on, that just can't be beat.

However, when Amazon announced their new Kindle, there was a bit of a concern among the bookies. After all, Amazon is the biggest book sales point in the world. If they were moving to electronic books, would that mean the end of the book as we know it? I still don't think so. The batteries only last a day or so, so you have to wait for the recharge to get to the next page. Can you imagine reading one of those books you just can't put down? You are in bed, late at night, breathlessly racing through this fabulous thriller, you just have to find out what it's all about and wham, the battery dies. Talk about horror.

Speaking of horror, Stephen King, the premier horror author of our time, bought a Kindle and wrote a column about it for Entertainment Weekly. Take a moment to read it. It is a thoughtful piece that puts Kindles and similar competitors to books in perspective. He loves the Kindle, but loves books too. He says it best with this:
Will Kindles replace books? No. And not just because books furnish a room, either. There's a permanence to books that underlines the importance of the ideas and the stories we find inside them; books solidify an otherwise fragile medium.

Predictions about the demise of books have a place with all the dire predictions we hear. There is some truth about the potential changes to a familiar element of our culture. The prediction jars us into deciding the importance of that element, where the future best lies and what needs to be embraced and what needs to be let go of. You have to consider, be prepared for, embrace the potential change, while treasuring what works and stands the test of time. I think books will always be with us. After all, Capt. Picard reads books all the time in Star Trek, Next Generation and that's a few years into the future!

Book: Danse Macabre, by Stephen King
Book: Future shock, by Alvin Toffler
CD: And I feel fine, by REM