Anna Quindlen in Newsweek

In the current issue of Newsweek magazine, there’s a great piece by Anna Quindlen.

She starts by says that she’s hearing people saying “The book is dead…” She’s referring to all the new e-readers (disclaimer: I have a Kindle and love it.) and that people are saying in X-number of years there will be no more traditional books. And that people are no longer reading. Then she says, “In 1952 a mere 18 percent of respondents said yes. The last time the survey was done, in 2005, that number was 47 percent. So much for the good old days.”
We have only to remember that the invention of cameras was going to eliminate painting; recordings were going to eliminate live music; movies were going to eliminate live theater; television was going to eliminate radio and the movies; etc., etc., etc.

Somehow, I don’t think e-readers are going to eliminate books, either.

Quindlen concludes: “Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self; that's why it survives. There are book clubs and book Web sites and books on tape and books online. There are still millions of people who like the paper version, at least for now. And if that changes—well, what is a book, really? Is it its body, or its soul? Would Dickens have recognized a paperback of A Christmas Carol, or, for that matter, a Braille version? Even on a cell-phone screen, Tiny Tim can God-bless us, every one.”