I love books. I also like paper books, but I believe that in the long run we're better off without them for economic and environmental reasons, and e-books are a pretty darned good alternative. I think that the inherent value of a book is its contents. Whether it is tangible or not doesn't matter as much.
I disagree, at least until e-books get much, much better. Dead tree books are still easier for me to read in a number of ways (ranging from actual ease of transferring information from the medium to the brain to not having the ability to open up TVTropes on my dead trees to the easy visual indicator letting me know that I've only got a couple more pages or that I should maybe stop for the night). I can quickly and easily jot down notes in the margin that are both apparent and easy to read on further rereads (the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo I have annotated over the years is a dear treasure to me) and I've yet to see anything that works so well in electronic form. Perhaps the most difficult thing to fix, though, is simply the way memory works. It often happens that I will want to reread a certain scene (or bit of information, in the case of nonfiction) but I don't really remember any good keywords from the scene, so an e-book search wouldn't do much good. Nevertheless, a strong visual memory is very helpful here: I'm usually able to quickly turn to the appropriate part of the book and start investigating bottom halves of left pages or what have you. From my experience, this same sort of search is far more tedious and less effective on e-books as they are today.
Now, is any of this universal? I hardly think so. It's not really complete, though, and I'm willing to bet that a large number of avid readers have their necessary features where e-books are lacking, and these extend beyond simple romanticism. I mean, sure, there is a lot of romanticism also buried in there (ever notice how the olfactory experience is so much richer with books than with Kindles?), but it's hardly the whole picutre.
That's not to say that e-books can't catch up to alleviate some of these issues, but I find it borderline ridiculous to say that there's no inherent value in the tangibility of a book.
I disagree, at least until e-books get much, much better. Dead tree books are still easier for me to read in a number of ways (ranging from actual ease of transferring information from the medium to the brain to not having the ability to open up TVTropes on my dead trees to the easy visual indicator letting me know that I've only got a couple more pages or that I should maybe stop for the night). I can quickly and easily jot down notes in the margin that are both apparent and easy to read on further rereads (the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo I have annotated over the years is a dear treasure to me) and I've yet to see anything that works so well in electronic form. Perhaps the most difficult thing to fix, though, is simply the way memory works. It often happens that I will want to reread a certain scene (or bit of information, in the case of nonfiction) but I don't really remember any good keywords from the scene, so an e-book search wouldn't do much good. Nevertheless, a strong visual memory is very helpful here: I'm usually able to quickly turn to the appropriate part of the book and start investigating bottom halves of left pages or what have you. From my experience, this same sort of search is far more tedious and less effective on e-books as they are today.
Now, is any of this universal? I hardly think so. It's not really complete, though, and I'm willing to bet that a large number of avid readers have their necessary features where e-books are lacking, and these extend beyond simple romanticism. I mean, sure, there is a lot of romanticism also buried in there (ever notice how the olfactory experience is so much richer with books than with Kindles?), but it's hardly the whole picutre.
That's not to say that e-books can't catch up to alleviate some of these issues, but I find it borderline ridiculous to say that there's no inherent value in the tangibility of a book.