The endangered book?

In view of the success of electronic devices for reading books such as Amazon's "Kindle", the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung asks whether "the printed book, our culture's most important medium, is menaced. ... So far only one thing seems certain: anyone who has anything to do with books, be it writing, printing, binding, publishing, transporting, selling or reading them, will be affected in one way or another by the new technology. ... It is not just the economics of the book market that will change. An unprecedented upheaval is threatening to radically alter the long-standing profanation of the written word. ... The cult of the book has its oldest and deepest roots in religion. The process of Enlightenment and secularisation has not destroyed this cult, but simply given it new roots. Anyone who picks up Amazon's e-book reader cannot fail to be impressed in the first hours and days by the technical possibilities offered by the device. Then when he goes back to his bookshelf, the aura of the book appears to him as tender and vulnerable as the wings of a butterfly."

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