E-Books in our Future?

I personally think the E-book will become as popular as regular books, probably having a longer reach. However, my wife teaches secondary education and listening to her stories I find myself just hoping for the continuing art of reading. I have lots of CD's with E-books on them. I also have shelves of printed work that I cannot imagine living without. I guess I like both... for different reasons.

ArtsJournal: About Last Night: "Some of you may have read my Wall Street Journal column about the return of the e-book, in which I reported on the Sony Reader and speculated on the possible effects of the e-book on the culture of reading and writing. (If you didn’t see the column, it’s here.) In that column I made a point of saying that eventual popular acceptance of the e-book was inevitable:

So will it fly? I don't know. Still, I'm certain that something like the Sony Reader will catch on, if not this year then in a short time. The phenomenal success of the iPod strongly suggests that many, perhaps most, consumers are ready to start buying digital books on the Web and storing and reading them electronically.

I did this for three reasons. One was rhetorical: I thought it would make the column more effective to take the coming of the e-book for granted. One was practical: my “Sightings” columns are only 850 words long, and I preferred to devote my space to speculating on the long-term effects of the e-book rather than taking the time to explain why I thought it would become popular. And one was a simple matter of honesty: that’s really what I think."