Books are dead?

I heard the saddest news this week - Borders has filed for bankruptcy. Wow. I'll be honest, of the two big book chains, I did and do like Barnes and Noble better but the reason behind Borders' death frightens me. It seems those electronic readers are taking over. Some pundits are saying that hard physical books are going the way of records.

I hate the thought that physical books might become obsolete. I love actual books. I love flipping the page, I love seeing stacks and stacks of books; browsing these books. My ideal house will be filled with reams of built in bookshelves (naturally with books inside). Do you know, that one time my sister and I spent a Friday night in London, LONDON, hanging out at a bookstore?! This is how much I love books!

My resistance to e-books comes down to one issue, and one serious to me. You can't read an e-book both during take off and landing in a plane. Silly, I know. But we all know, they make you turn all electronic devices off like 20 minutes before the plane actually touches the ground. That is a precious 20 minutes I could have been reading, heck I could be in the middle of a good part and now have to sit around and twiddle my thumbs. Blah.

What makes me sad about Borders' demise is gone are the browsing opportunities. I love browsing through book stores, finding new authors, new stories. You can't really do that on an e-book.

I will say the one and only thing that I see as an advantage for an e-book, less paper, going green.

Hope that the demise of the physical book is not well until the year 3000 when I'm long gone.