I resisted for the longest time. Every time someone argued the benefit of having thousands of titles at my fingertips, I argued back about the pleasure of smelling paper and ink, the tangible pleasure of holding something flexible and warm and glossy in my hands.... And everything I said is still true, but my flexible, good smelling books are starting to come apart now. And faced with having to replace them-- again-- a lot of my favorite titles are going onto the Nook instead of the bookshelf.

Does this mean our house will be devoid of books? No, there are still thousands of them in every room. But there will be fewer all the time. Because excepting some exquisite, rare and signed tomes-- antiques, often in foreign languages-- the ease of e-reading will probably win enough of the small battles to eventually win the war. Add to that the many on NY's authors are now self-publishing and their books are only in e-format and I think the trend is set.

Still, this is a little like the Christmas tree. We went artificial because I hated killing a tree every December. But pretty and practical as the tree is (woven willow branches with crystals that look like ice) nothing will ever replace all those fond memories of real trees and the wonderful way they smelled and looked and felt.