...Besides, does anybody actually go to book stores anymore? I think there's still a Borders not too far from me but all the other book stores are long gone, sadly...
That is a very sad commentary unfortunately.
"Real books" IMHO are still a very important part of our society but, it seems, they are becoming increasingly devalued.
For the future I am yet to be convinced that digital media give the same impetus to learning how to read, as well as reading to learn, that a good book (read: real in one's hands kind of book) can.
I can still get excited about going to a good bookstore but as Schewe says there just aren't any left anymore.
Borders made a brief appearance in Australia and then went bankrupt, most other independent bookstores have similarly disappeared.
The two franchise chains left are hopeless - I have not even been inside one in the last five years.
Nearly all my book purchases in the last few years have been through Amazon - not by choice - it appears to be the only place that I can find any of the titles that I want.
All I can hope for is that my pessimism regarding the demise of the "real book" and the bookstores that sold them is misplaced.
The education of generations to come and future economic and political stability will be at stake.
Nonetheless, my hope is that individuals like Jeff Schewe continue to write books on all sorts of topics and that their publishers do not give up on print media.
Just as an aside I see no problem with presenting publications in different forms of media, including digital, at all. I just see those options as complimentary to "real books" and not as an absolute replacement.
Tony Jay