You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Amazon may launch the Kindle in the UK this year, Waterstone's has had success with the Sony Reader and Borders is about to launch a new device, but Nick Hornby is not feeling the fever pitch over e-books.
In an interview with The Bookseller the High Fidelity author has expressed scepticism as to whether the e-book reader will become as ubiquitous as the Apple iPod. He said: "People don't read enough. Their consumption is summer holidays and they like to take a couple of paperbacks away with them. That's a three-for-two offer. They read maybe seven or eight per year. You don't need one of those machines to do that."
Hornby suggested that no one had any great affection for CDs, whereas people are still attached to books as a form. He said: "It's hard to beat the convenience and price of a paperback book. I think it will be like that for a little while. IPods were driven after kids saw what MP3 players did. They all wanted one but I am not sure whether they feel the same about e-book readers."
This is not the first time that Hornby has voiced doubts about whether e-book readers will be a success. In a Penguin blog last summer, he wrote that the devices "don't look very cool". However, since then Waterstone's has begun selling the Sony device, racking up more than 30,000 sales between its launch in September and Christmas 2008. Amazon is widely expected to introduce its Kindle device to the UK in 2009.