In An Era Of Immediacy, Why Fear The E-Book?

Eric Weiner, a former reporter for NPR, is author of 'The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.'

The other day I was in a cafe when I noticed a woman reading on a Kindle, Amazon's clunky, oddly quaint e-reader. "Do you like it?" I asked. "Yes," she said, beaming. "It's great. I can travel with 200 books, a library at my fingertips." Being an insecure author (is there any other kind?), I asked if my book happened, just happened, to be among those lucky 200. She punched a few keys on her Kindle, and up popped my book. Well, not my book exactly, but the same words that appear in my book. There's a difference. The printed word has a permanence, a finality to it that digital "ink" lacks. Digital words are provisional, always subject to change. Call me Ishmael. No, call me … Brad. Yes, that's much better.

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