Just a few days ago I was in my pops basement, going thru my old storage of books making an attempt to pick which ones I had more of an emotional attachment too.  I was moving across states with the help of a friend and his pickup, so I had to tame my inner pack rat and take only what I felt was critical, things I would really remember not taking and regret it.  Over my 20+ years I’ve picked up a far quantity of books, there was a point in my teenage years where I could easily devour 2 or 3 a week.  Such was the life of a forsaken loser. 

After I filled 2 cardboard boxes with my most favourite stories, I couldn’t help but think about my mates new “toy”-an Amazon  ‘Kindle’.  An ebook rising in appreciation that downloads books direct from Amazon’s Whispernet. 

The most recent Kindle model, Kindle DX costs just about $500, I could not believe he was willing to drop that kind of scratch to read the same books he could buy for slightly less than a quarter of that price .  How could it potentially mimic the intimate connection you can get with a good paper paged novel?  Especially older ones, with yellowed pages and a thick, musty smell. 

Ebooks had a little surge in appreciation in the early 2000′s, but many were only programed in one format.  So if you were the owner of an ebook, and your fave novel just came out on a rivals Ebook-you would just have to cope with it. 

Due to the Kindle’s popularity, many huge firms decided to try and join the competition.  Barnes & Noble introduced they are “Nook”, which is the first to be primarily based on the  ‘Android’ platform, and has a MicroSD growth slot for extra storage.  Apart from being much cheaper Kindle alternative, it can be hacked to add applications like Pandora, a twitter customer, Google Reader, Facebook, and a net browser. 

In France, Bookeen released the ultra light Cybook Opus, featuring a paper-like high contrast appearance that can really be read in direct daylight.  When the Cybook Opus is hitched up to your PC it registers as a common USB mass storage device , so that you can easily copy books without special drivers. 

With the release of Apple’s iPad, came the release of the iBooks application.  Apart from having all of the features of the Kindle, it could also insert video.  Still lacks USB ports, however. 

While my pal raved about his costly, miniscule, electronic library, I could not help but think how dumb it was to suspect that a small, thin gizmo able to download books could ever replace centuries of paper paged history.  It only took up less room, you could download any book you wanted if you wanted, generations to come would certainly be cheaper and better quality…I stopped my train of thought and took a good look at my stacks of physical books, all together they weighed a ton and took up so much space.  Will this generation see the passing of broadcast word?  I’m sure people in the sixties could not imagine life without their favourite 12-inch vinyl records, now those self same folks carry the whole discography of their favorite artist on an itty bitty iPod. 

a decade gone T.V’s were chunky monstrosities, now they’re paper thin with such superb quality you can count the pores on someone’s's jaw.  Ten years gone Nintendo games were still pixelated and featured squat characters with jerky movements, now it’s essentially interactive animation.  In 10 years, will my  ‘bookcase’ just become  ‘shelves’?  Featuring one Ebook and whatever knick knacks I throw on there to lose the empty space?  What will happen to libraries?  My fave used book store? 

As I ultimately closed the cardboard boxes and pressed down the packing tape, I couldn’t help thinking how convenient it’d be to just slip my favorite book  ‘The Stand’ in my back pocket while having the rest of my library stored on my C : drive.

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