“Planet PDF is now offering an assortment of some of the most popular classics — free! Help yourself to them, and feel free to share them with your friends. We’ll be adding new ones each week, so come back soon for new eBooks.” You don’t need to come back every week; what they’re offering already will keep you occupied for a long while. Time to revisit Moby Dick again — on my PDA.

I do so love having a book stored in my PDA, while we’re on the topic. If I have a free moment to grab to read, wherever I happen to be, it is with me, in my shirt pocket, even when I am inconveniently far from the nearest source of printed reading material or the ‘real’ book I carry around in my bag. However, eBooks will never totally supplant printed books for me. Part of the experience of buying and owning books is their sensuality and their substantiality. If I live long enough to see the death of the book publishing industry in favor of digital distribution, I will still, I venture to say, be an old curmudgeon jealously guarding my room full of filled boookshelves.