It may not be long before we have to add explanations such as these, certainly to the younger generation, My children still chuckle when I talk about putting a "record" on the "record player" - yes, we still have one although it is rarely used, I have to admit.
If the Kindle and other E Book readers really take off, and they will, history says that my children's children will be scoffing at my sons talking about books, in the same way that they, my sons, treat my comments about records.
As a second hand bookseller, ought I to be worried? I don't think so. The dead tree book will not die. There are plenty of vinyl records still bought and sold and plenty of record players too, but I believe that books will have a far greater shelf life (pun intended) than records in any event. A book has soul, a rare book has something more than that. I always feel when holding say, one of our first edition Thomas Hardy books (Val has a few of these as she is a huge Hardy fan), that I am transported back to 1896 and I feel close to the author. I feel even closer when I am holding one of our large collection of signed by author books - holding a signed copy of John Le Carre's "The Constant Gardener" makes me feel that I know Mr Le Carre, personally. You can flick through books, leave them lying handily around on the sofa (without worrying whether you sit on them - not advisable with a Kindle or I-Pad!) and what about the joys of spending hours browsing round an old bookshop - the equivalent with EBooks would be sitting in front of the PC or IPad and browsing through the Amazon store - hardly the same is it?
I don't have a Kindle, nor an I Pad, although my youngest has the latter. However I have found out that you don't need to own a Kindle or I Pad to be able to read E Books on your PC - you just download the appropriate application from the Amazon website (but you knew that didn't you? Just me being a dinosaur). Last night it happened - I was browsing away on the Amazon website at new books. I saw one that I really fancied the look of called "Get Out While You Can - Escape The Rat Race" by George Marshall. Now, I don't know about you, but sometimes I see a book and I want it now, and for some reason, last night at 10.30pm, I wanted to start reading George Marshall's book, right then, up in bed. So I found myself downloading the Kindle for PC application from Amazon. In an instant it was done and in another instant I had downloaded George Marshall's book and was getting stuck into it for about an hour before I turned the lights out and got my head down. The Kindle version of the book was £4.27 instead of £14.99 as a paperback, and for a book that I had not thought of buying until yesterday evening, that seemed a good price to pay (it actually looks as though it will be a very good book).
I think E Books have a place - for me it will be "horses for courses." I would not want to read a novel on my PC, a Kindle or an IPad - just a personal thing. I do see that I could make more "whim" buys of non fiction stuff.
As a bookseller, do I worry about E Books? No, I do not. Ebooks will become the standard, of that there is no doubt - before 7 more years are out they will be the way that children read books in schools as standard and university students will reach that probably in no more than 5 years. However, people will still want the real thing - and if as I suspect it will be the case that less and less dead tree books are published, that makes our stocks at Stortbooks and those at other rare and second hand booksellers, ever more a haven for real book lovers and we'll keep adding to that stock by hook or crook of that you can be sure!
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