If they've got any sense publishers will get on the ereader bandwagon as quickly as possible. It's either that or they try and emulate the music and movie industries. Technology changes - ask Gutenberg.

Another advantage of the Kindle is that it allows anyone to publish their own writings at minimum expense and gives them exposure to a wide audience. They no longer have to rely on the whims of publishers to get their work read.

IMO, most writers who can not get published are not good enough to get published. There will be tons of crap books available (think of the books published locally about Thailand) and the decent ones by unknown writers will mostly get ignored. More and more, the top bestsellers will be all most people will be interested in and (mostly) all that they will buy. It will be interesting to see what happens with literature in the future, but my guess is that it will be much more limited and less inventive than when we were growing up.

I'm sorry that I've been out of touch for a week, and couldn't contribute to this thread earlier. I have been an insatiable book reader since I was a teenager (I'm the same age as Humphrey Bear, so that's quite a while). When I was a teenager, I used to frequent the cheap racks of my local bookshops, and bear treasures home to my despairing parents.... our house was none too large.

I love the sheer feel of a book, preferably a hardback, and if it has aged a bit, so much the better. I still keep a few old books in my home to remind me of those days; indeed, I can claim that one, dated 1513, is the oldest printed book in Thailand. The fact that it is a commentary on the psalms in highly abbreviated Latin, which I have no wish to read, does not matter.

So much for the emotional side of reading.

In practical terms, of course the ebook is easier to store, and does not decay as my books, in the hostile climate of Isan, do. And I'm running out of room. And I can't buy the books I want near my home, and have to make regular trips to Chiangmai and Bangkok to resupply.

But then I'm none too young, and I will keep buying 'real' books as long as I can. Meanwhile I use my laptop (I don't have a Kindle, but use Kindle app) for books which I can't otherwise obtain... my tastes are somewhat eccentric!

I also have been an obsessive reader since I first learned to read in first grade. The original Wizard of Oz series by Frank Baum got me hooked and then I moved on to the Tarzan of the Apes series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and tons of books that I picked at the library just because they looked interesting.

As I mentioned before, the biggest thing that I will miss is browsing in libraries and bookstores. Doing it online will never be as much fun or as satisfying. Luckily, I just love to read and am not that picky, so can make do with ebooks instead of traditional books when paper books become a luxury item.

I'll also miss the browsing in bookshops. In fact it is not the same now was it was ten years ago and certainly not 20 years ago.

I'm a bit younger than some here, 44, but have been going to bookshops since i can first remember, dragged along by my Father, and later by myself from my early teens.

I miss travelling around to small country bookshops, junk shops, charity shops, and finding hidden treasures: rare and unusual books.

First it started with junk shops clearing out their books, then charity shops modernising and ridding themselves of the old looking book, then small secondhand book shops closing down due to patronage/rent/return/deciding to sell online.

I certainly miss my week long book buying trips travelling around the small towns of Eastern Australia.

There's still plenty of paper to be found.

I'm not a particularly avid reader, but the bairns won't go anywhere without a book, so that they can immerse themselves in their fantasy world and escape the tedium of real life. But anyway, once a month or so I'll fo to the local discount book store and buy a couple of books - far more than I read in a month! Because of the company I keep, a depressing lot of miserable Indian literature - for a change i got a bit of Rudyard Kipling.... then I borrowed my daughter's copy of Slumdog Millionaire...

Anyway, this month's book is a little Gabriel Garcia Marquez novella that would slip into your raincoat pocket, if you had one... then I'll get started on Windup Girl that I bought at the Big Bad Wolf book sale before Christmas; then I'll look on the shelf (not literally, since I don't own a shelf - stacks on the floor) and see what else is unread....

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There's loads of cheap books available in the UK at charity shops. Our local supermarket also takes free books in, sells them and then donates the proceeds to a local teen cancer charity. I like historical fiction and I can buy a book for 50p and not worry whether I've wasted my money. I recently bought a couple of books by Philippa Gregory which I thought would be a bit girly (apologies to girls everywhere) but it turns out they taught me a lot about the Tradescants, gardeners to the Cecil family and George Villiers.

It is my opinion that as soon as the book industry (paper books) has been decimated by ebooks, the prices on ebooks will increase and there will be no more "lending" to other readers (other than on the same device) and other gimmicks to compete with paper books. I remember when the giant book stores moved in to big cities and gave great discounts on everything. They said that they would always do this because they got such a good price buying in huge quantities that it only made sense. Of course, as soon as they put the smaller stores out of business the prices went back up and most of the discounts were gotten rid of.

Businesses always change their minds when it comes to revenues. Back in the 70's cable TV channels (in the US anyway) didn't have advertising because costs were paid for by subscription fees. That didn't last long.

There's loads of cheap books available in the UK at charity shops. Our local supermarket also takes free books in, sells them and then donates the proceeds to a local teen cancer charity. I like historical fiction and I can buy a book for 50p and not worry whether I've wasted my money. I recently bought a couple of books by Philippa Gregory which I thought would be a bit girly (apologies to girls everywhere) but it turns out they taught me a lot about the Tradescants, gardeners to the Cecil family and George Villiers.

Phillipa Gregory went girly after her first three or four historical novels, I think. I also enjoyed her early novels greatly. Now we have Hilary Mantel who has won two Man Booker prizes with historical novels, and the one I'm reading (Wolf Hall - based on Thomas Cromwell) is certainly not girly - not blokey either. It's a huge paperback that I got from the library. Too big to handle for comfortable reading. Would be better on Kindle, and would probably just look pretentious on a bookshelf at home.

There's loads of cheap books available in the UK at charity shops. Our local supermarket also takes free books in, sells them and then donates the proceeds to a local teen cancer charity. I like historical fiction and I can buy a book for 50p and not worry whether I've wasted my money. I recently bought a couple of books by Philippa Gregory which I thought would be a bit girly (apologies to girls everywhere) but it turns out they taught me a lot about the Tradescants, gardeners to the Cecil family and George Villiers.

Phillipa Gregory went girly after her first three or four historical novels, I think. I also enjoyed her early novels greatly. Now we have Hilary Mantel who has won two Man Booker prizes with historical novels, and the one I'm reading (Wolf Hall - based on Thomas Cromwell) is certainly not girly - not blokey either. It's a huge paperback that I got from the library. Too big to handle for comfortable reading. Would be better on Kindle, and would probably just look pretentious on a bookshelf at home.

I've got the hardback which is even bigger

There's a big difference between hardbacks and paperbacks. Hardbacks should be things to cherish, while paperbacks are for reading once and then discarding. Unfortunately, circumstances in Thailand make it essential for any serious reader to concentrate on paperbacks, unless he has resources rather higher than mine.

That said, there are paperbacks I cherish because I can't get hold of the books in any other format (and ebooks, for me, are a last resort).

E-Books don't go brown, don't fill up your limited space, don't weigh a ton when you go on holiday, and don't get lost or borrowed never to return.

But for some of the same reasons they are anti-social, are not aesthetically pleasing, tactile or a thing of beauty which if well kept, may hold some form of value.

Horses for courses. Live in a flat in Hong humid Kong....e for me. Nice house in Europe, with a cosy library to curl up in with a good book in winter....No brainer.

E-Books don't go brown, don't fill up your limited space, don't weigh a ton when you go on holiday, and don't get lost or borrowed never to return.

But for some of the same reasons they are anti-social, are not aesthetically pleasing, tactile or a thing of beauty which if well kept, may hold some form of value.

Horses for courses. Live in a flat in Hong humid Kong....e for me. Nice house in Europe, with a cosy library to curl up in with a good book in winter....No brainer.

True, but they have no "soul"!

I lived in Hong Kong for 25 years, and books which I took with me when I went there have survived the 25 years without apparent damage (not indeed paperbacks). Then I was in Chiangmai for 21 years; no problem. Now I am in Buriram, where there is indeed a problem. The winter months are too dry; paperbacks go brown quite rapidly, and I've found foxing on some of my hardbacks already (after only five years). Really old books printed on ricepaper show no deterioration; the 500-year-old book I mentioned above shows no deterioration in spite of passing through all the vicissitudes of the past 60 years. Open it up, and the pages are almost as new... just a mellowing. But then probably not many people actually read it!

It's worth noting that late 19th century books in the Smithsonian, printed when the paper contained harmful acids, are decaying faster than the library can conserve them. True, they would have outlived anyone who was alive when they were printed.... but I hope the 500-year-old book will survive for another 500 years, unless of course the human race does something terminally stupid, which is not unlikely.

Of course, if your taste runs to hacks like Clive Cussler, Jeremy Deaver and the like, durability hardly matters.