The Great Ebook Debate

We find it so hard to give up our dream, our favorite fantasy. Who does not relish the idea of curling up before the fire, snow swirling in the window, reading a good book?

But wait... What if we play back the little dream. Try this... Who does not relish the idea of curling up before the fire, snow swirling in the window, reading a good ebook?

Ugh!

It's just not the same somehow...ebook...You can't be serious.

Well, you'd better get used to it. More than likely that is exactly what you will be reading and enjoying a good Brahms symphony too, all on your mobile phone.

Now lets come back to reality... When we read a "good book" we are actually reading a good paperback. How many trees have given their all for those retched paperbacks! The lighting is always on the page you are not reading, you have to pull on the book to keep it open...drop it and you loose your place. You have to scan back and forth with your eyes because edges the page is just out of the range of your bifocals. If you find a few spare moments to read, the book is at home...you are not. You seldom choose to read what you want because it is hard to find many of the books you would really like to sink your mind into. And those paperbacks are expensive, especially in the airport stores.

You read your ebook on the small phone or wireless PDA screen. It is always with you even in the bathroom, lighting is always perfect, text is sharp and clear, the page is always the right size to speed read and you never loose your place. If you don't know the meaning of a word, you can look it up. You can highlight or even draw in it without getting a librarian mad at you. You can beam it to a friend and both read it at the same time. You can look up stuff on the internet that the author is talking about, like the painting of the last supper when reading the Da Vinci Code. Best of all, if you want to read some special book you can download it, often for free, in about 30 seconds.

For that matter, why read at all? Nowdays we can just listen to a good book. So curl up by the fire with that idea!