Predictions of the end of Books

In today’s mail, in a note from a friend, I received a recent Newsweek article touting the hand held readers available from amazon, which also predicted the demise of the publishing industry and books as we read, check out from the library, and buy. As my friend points out, had I “been born in 1990 you would not have the problems of stacks of books. You would read off Kindle and then erase.” He also sent a copy of a 1976 letter sent to him from the mystery writer Jonathan Latimer.
Also in the mail was a note from the owner of my favorite book shop, and a book I bought used (yes, through amazon, though I patronize alibris gladly and often).
Recently, we visited Thimbleberry, a quintessential used book store in Marshfield, WI, where (surprise!) we found books that needed come home with us, and were allowed by the resident cat to massage its ears. Cat ears have a satisfying texture under the fingers, like gentle lettuce, and this cat was gracious enough to allow its ears to be touched. In addition to smelling of old, used books, and offering us gateways to authors like Latimer (who respond to paper letters sent by their admirers), Thimbleberry possessed a wide low table, made of leather and wood, that looked like three stacked leather-bound books. I was enchanted, and desired one for my very own.

Some research on the infamous www led me to Maitland-Smith, people who make furniture that dust is afraid to sit on, and, in addition to that table [“Hand tooled Savannah Brown Leather Book Cocktail Table with Drawers”], a trunk that looks like a stack of books.
Without a computer and a line running electricity, or whatever energy telephone lines are made of, I would never had known that, just as I would never be able to order books at 6 a.m., ask my favorite store what was in stock, and obtain many interesting pieces of information (like Thimbleberry’s address). But despite Kindle’s touted easability, eras-ability, and immediacy, despite that prognosticator’s assurance, I still want to hold a book in my hand. How else could my fingers turn the same pages that were turned by hundreds of library patrons, or know that the Cornelia Funke Ink-trilogy books fit perfectly in my palms? How else would I know what time feels like? We need time, and space to read a book. That’s what Kindle forgets. Thank you no: I don’t want a plastic contraption that lights up, and allows me to read whatever, wherever (though I do admit that shutting it off is tempting). I don’t want to erase the books I have read, because I want to reread them, lend them to trustworthy friends, and refer to a sentence in them. I want the comforting weight of a volume that someone else has valued; I want the smell of glue and paper. I want the old amber color of light falling across the page, not a page that illuminates itself from the inside out. I’ll take my illumination in the ideas that transfer from book to mind.

There are those who will argue that we need to modernize: we save trees, we speed communication, we erase what we don’t want (economizing on space and brain cells). They have an ecological point. I’ll take the books I’m finished reading to a store where they will become someone’s find-of-the-day. I’ll pass along the illumination.
Where do we get our information, how do we want to receive information, and how do we want to interact with the world (as well as others)? Is time, or convenience, or the communication itself most significant? Thank you, we’ll choose cat ears to massage, paper notes in the mail, and real books.