RIP paper books

**Paper books have been pretty much absent from my life for the past five or six years. Before e-readers I regularly used audio books because they were a lot easier to use while on the move. But with e-readers, like my Kindle, I’ve even left audio books behind. Granted they’re not useable in as many situations as audio books, but audio often puts me to sleep and continues playing so that I lose my place. With an ebook I can search the book and recover my place if I should happen to lose it.

Reading on an  iPad is less comfortable than with a Kindle, although the iPad Mini could obviate that difficulty. And iPad books can show color and illustrations better than monochrome ebooks. I like highlighting things I find interesting and you can’t do that with an audio book, and even with a paper book there’s no easy way to compile those notes and highlights. With an ebook, on the other hand, I can not only highlight but I can also make a note, send a correction to the publisher (surprising how many times I have to do that) and get a definition of an unfamiliar word. I also like seeing which passages have been highlighted by others (popular highlights).

Paper books can also give you the illusion that you are amassing a huge vault of information that you can tap into, but in reality that seldom happens with me. I tend not to go back and read old books. And they do pile up around the house (giving the illusion, perhaps, that I’m some kind of intellectual.)

I recently read a paper book for the first time in years (it was a gift.) I can’t say I enjoyed the experience just because I was handling the pages (and glad I didn’t have to shake out the detritus of someone else’s personal life). It takes up as much physical room as my entire library of ebooks. I’ve given away almost all of my paper books (most of which were connected with the religious delusion I was under for several decades), retaining technical manuals and the like that I sometimes need to use for reference. And BTW, I haven’t used a library in decades. They’re just too slow, fussy and never have what I want when I want it. I'm glad they fill the needs of others, but so far a library is just a place to hide out where no one would think of finding me.

So, I’m afraid the paper book industry and those industries that have symbiotic relationships with it, will slide into the dustbin of history, like crystal radios, tube TVs, rotary telephones and other matter-based artifacts. But the need to share information persists, and at the moment, and for the foreseeable future, ebooks and e-readers are the standard.