E-books have been hyped as a print revolution, the equal of Gutenberg's in 1439 when his moveable type made possible affordable personal books. No longer were people read to from manuscripts they couldn't own and probably couldn't read. Personal books gave an incentive to learn reading, literacy went up, and ideas were more widely shared.

But for a few reasons, I don't think e-books will register like Gutenberg.

E-books have a diminished materiality vis a vis paper books.

E-books are just bytes written on the proverbial head of a pin and stored in silicon. Yes, a library of pinhead books fits inside one e-reader's flash memory. They can be digitally copied and sent anywhere in the world in no time. And are cheap to produce--millicents, so to speak!

But pinhead books have drawbacks:

The immateriality of pinhead books means no books on the shelf. So one has to search with the touted functionality to slice and dice the digitized heap any way except . . . the one way--for that particular reader--that's too obvious later. Oh, that book, it's too long. Can we forgive the would-be reader for overlooking amid all the tags, descriptions, and links the book had 942 pages?

With a paper book, we pick it off the shelf and look it over: book cover, flap copy, random pages. A lot of clues all at once. Perhaps we've read something by the well-known writer who gave a blurb on the back cover. Perhaps we find the author photo unsettling. Perhaps we read the first paragraph, deciding, This guy can't write. Perhaps the title and subtitle mislead. Perhaps some wordless feeling comes over us and we think, I've gotta buy this book now.

All of that interaction with a paper book takes seconds--maybe longer--but it's remarkably efficient. We've done this all our lives.

Not so with pinhead books. No matter how easy point-and-click is supposed to be, identifying duds is no snap.

Let me put it this way. My library allows check out of ten e-book titles. I currently have nine and all await automatic return after twenty-one days (Once downloaded, I can't return them sooner). I read and enjoyed, one title. My close associate, ditto. So that's seven titles--once downloaded--I examined closer and found to be non-starters or not worth finishing. That's a sorry record.

So what does one do? Go to the bricks-and-mortar and find a good book, then buy the e-book version and save a few bucks by your cleverness? I think not.

Face it, the paper book--Gutenberg's progeny--is nearly perfect.

Image credit: Google Images @ hobbytalk.com.

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Read Charlie Dickinson's story collection, The Cat at Light's End, as an ebook in these downloadable formats:

.mobi (Kindle)
.epub (most other readers)
.pdf (for PCs)

Also, a flash fiction, "Ylena Thinks Nyet," is at Cigale Literary Magazine.

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