Are books doomed: the rise of the Kindle

There's something about books, isn't there? The unforgettable crackling of the turn of a page, the feeling of a finger tracing the spine, that smell of must and epiphany which still haunts a novel years after publication (in the words of Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Rupert Giles, "learning should be smelly"). We've always known that there's more to the experience of reading than mere words; the book itself has power to conjure feelings beyond even those held by the text inside. And yet, figures released today suggest that sales of e-books will outweigh those of printed text by the year 2018 as we turn to our iPads and Kindles for our reading. This is a startling idea; the page has forever been our source for reading; so is it really possible that book readers will eventually become a minority?

Despite my book-loving nature, I don't find it difficult to understand why people are attracted to the e-book. Certainly, from a practical perspective they outclass physical books by some distance, as thousands of virtual pages can be transported without any increase in weight. But surely not everyone buys e-books to travel, so why else has the switch to the screen been so dramatic? Perhaps in our tech-dominated society, "newer" has simply become synonymous with "better, encouraging us to invest more the concept. The superb marketing of the products must also be a factor; TV viewing figures would suggest that people are more impacted by advertising than they've ever been before. Then there's the wonderful idea that only you have to know what you're reading, as no one can scoff at you for starting the Harry Potter series now or for reading 50 Shades of Grey (perhaps the novel which can take the most blame for the rise of e-books) if the cover is replaced by a plastic casing.

But, as I mentioned before, there's something about books. The first time I wanted to read The Lord of the Rings, my dad, with a stately reverence worthy of the crown jewels, handed me a dusty collected volume his father had gifted him as a boy. The book demanded respect; Gandalf stared defiantly out of the cover; the pages were yellowing and dog-eared with use and it smelled like the sixties were still swinging on unabated. I'm looking that that book now, and it holds memories not only of the discovery of the beautiful land of Middle Earth, but also of other events in my life which occurred while I was reading it. Now, I ask you, can an iPad capture feelings in the same way? Can a Kindle harbour such nostalgia? I hardly think so.

As I've already stated, reading isn't just about the words, and e-book buyers only receive half the experience. Books, for all their practical imperfections, will remain as essential as the act of reading itself, and the page will never truly be replaced, because we and they simply have too much history together. After all, who could trade the subtle happiness of the feeling of pages and the smell of books for the cold plastic of a Kindle? Not I.