Come on tesco. We need a reader ar 39.99.

750,000 titles for download? Sounds great. Having just tried random searches for Peter Kay (Sound of Laughter, big on Waterstone's ebooks site; not on this one), John Buchan (assorted odd titles, but no 39 Steps, as can be found on Waterstone's, Smiths and elsewhere) and 'Cultural Amnesia' (Clive James, Macmillan e-book long available on other sites and the first one I ever downloaded; not here) and found them all missing, I'm having a wild guess that those 750,000 are a bunch of out-of-copyright and/or POD and/or old rubbish, but not the holy grail of an easy-to-use and comprehensively stocked UK e-book download retail site. When someone (at another wild guess, Amazon) finally offers a load of great books for easy download, they'll probably clean up and finally kick-start the e-books revolution.

Martin, many thanks for the clarification. I suddenly see that what I'd mistakenly thought was a lifelong love of all kinds of books and reading was really just a coveting of those devices I hadn't yet realised would one day exist.

And, while I think about it, people who read paperbacks are obviously not quite the full ticket either, given it's the aeshetic experience (of a nice leather-bound hardback, for instance) and not the words on the page themselves that's really important.

I agree with you Martin. As a teacher, I believe literature hasn't generally been well taught in schools - certainly not in State schools - boys in partcular have a real problem finding any significance or depth in it and inevitably tend to the sciences. You suspect that the majority of e-book fans will be male and most of what they'll read will be non-fiction or at best cheap "pot-boiler" fiction. It's a major problem frankly and I don't pretend to have the answer. It's doubly sad because you sense that the eager anticipation of "the e-book revolution" masks an unconscious desire to finally delve into the classics and the wisdom they contain; this will never find fulfillment of course precisely because the conscious focus is on the gadgetry and they will have no more motivation to read good literature than they do now.

My agent has an ebook reader so he can store lots of submitted books on it and can read on the train, on the move wherever. He can also wite notes/edit etc. Taking ten books with you on a three week holiday is a lot easier. I suppose we could all go back to Lindisfarne but personally I'd rather just listen to their music on some other new fangled technology. I don't own an ebook yet but people are reading my work on them and for some reason I can't bring myself to look down my nose at them. I'm sure it will come to me soon enough why!
:)

@Martin "Half of the plebs posting here" - yikes! You come across as a kind of bookish, luddite Richard Littlejohn. You make the mistake of fudging an argument about delivery method by assuming the inherent value of the written word is relevant here. There are people who get excited by new forms of technology, but it does not follow that these people are not book lovers, or do not posess the "sufficient sensitivity to appreciate good literature" as you so charmingly put it. I'm sure you read online newspapers, but do not consider their content to be of any less value than their print counterparts. If there were not people interested in and excited by technology, then we would not have had the printing press, let alone the paperback or the e-book. Snobbish snipes at those who don't understand the nuances of "irony, paradox etc" have no place in this discussion - or anywhere, in my (e)book.

Boys 'n their toys sums it up. Incidentally Martin, you're not Martin Amis are you? You sound uncannily like him

Ross, if I said I was you wouldn't believe me and if I said I wasn't you wouldn't believe me.....This is a no through road.

and yes, i should probably have subbed my post first too!

Martin - maybe, but I suspect it's a no through road in the general area of Primrose Hill.

Emma: exist side by side? Of course - and anyway we have no choice. Try taking toys off kids and merry hell is let loose. My point is that the extreme fascination with technology is perverse in (self-styled) "book lovers" (bad enough in the general population). We shall see, but my guess is that the market will rapidly bifurcate into the techno-nerds and those who are happy with the traditional formats. The latter will resemble those with mobile phones who could theoretically have meaningful communication with another on their devices but never do; the nature of the thing has attracted an altogether different kind of person and/or created a different and extremely superficial intercourse (ever overheard these crass non-conversations?)

I disagree, Martin. You cannot drive a technolgical revolution with a product which clearly isn't up to scratch yet. At the moment, only amazon.com even offer wireless (although I hear that others may follow suit relatively soon). There's also a format war coming which is going to put a fair few ebook manufacturers out of business and put off a lot of potential buyers until it's resolved. I'm not remotely convinced that many people are going to want to pay

Martin - "My point is that the extreme fascination with technology is perverse in (self-styled) "book lovers" (bad enough in the general population)" In what way is it perverse? Also, why do you only count it as perverse when it's technology about books? pdfs have been available for download on the internet for ages and several people use them, not just "techno-nerds" and Jonathan - I realise that you don't think the holiday argument is valid but there are many other people who would use an ebook reader. The main other reason would be students and teachers, though they need to bring out more educational books in the right format. For other readers who don't download as much - why would they need to when they've got 100 free titles? If they took the titles out of the deal then they could probably bring the price down even more so that it was easier for people to afford. However, there are a lot of classics in those 100 titles which people may not read otherwise

Does the cooler ebook have colour screen for graphic novels?