I love to read. I can easily go through several books in a week. Because of this, I love my local libraries. No way could I support my habit if I had to buy everything. Which to me is a huge downfall of the electronic readers.
Yes, they are portable. But so is a book. Yes, you can easily carry more than one with you at a time and you can download more where ever you are. Ok, so I can see the benefit of that, especially if I were taking a trip overseas. But in most cases, books are small enough that I can pack one or two with me. And most woman have purses the size of small houses, they could fit an entire library in there (j/k).
The thing I see as the biggest drawback to an ereader, aside from cost, is the fact that you can't take it everywhere (no matter what they say). I just don't see myself taking an ereader in the bath, for instance. No more than I would take a TV or a toaster.
So it saddens me to see "The death of books is coming" articles. So Amazon reported that Kindle books sold more copies than hard back books for the first time. That could be a price thing again. Kindle versions usually are cheaper than hard backs. Or maybe its that people have stopped buying hard backs because of the expense. If I can't get a book at the library I wait for the paperback version to come out. And then I hit the used bookstore ;) Even before money was so tight, there were only ever a few authors that I had to have their newest books the moment they came out. Sadly, most of those authors have so disappointed on their last few books that I'll never buy one of their books again. It's the library or nothing. (*cough*laurellkhamilton*cough*)
Hell, maybe that's why the sale of hard backs is down. The quality of books is down! One long time favorite author's latest book turned into a political tome, used to ram her opinions down the readers' throats rather than anything resembling a plot.
I've returned several long awaited books to the library recently having skimmed through them, rather than actually reading them, because they just didn't hold my interest. That's the problem with series, I guess. After a while they just become repetitive or change so much that you don't recognize the main characters. Or my favorite, when one book contradicts all previously established background. I understand that when you've written hundreds of books it's hard to keep every detail straight, but you can bet your readers will ;) (There's a mystery series that springs to mind. One of my favorite authors in fact, but it killed me. In one book she states that a certain killer from a previous book is going on trial, yet in that book she killed the killer off, lol)
