Check out this comic from Angela Liao over at twenty pixels.
It begins with this preface:
Reading text lists of titles and gridded book covers images can’t compete with the in-store bookstore experience. There’s something magical about browsing books with your head tilted sideways to read titles on book spines and seeing towering walls of books on shelves. People say that “print is dying” but I hope that some experiences will never change. Dear all bookstores, please don’t die!
Neha Prakash at Mashable looks at the other side of the coin and sees it as the beginning of a high-tech makeover for the bookshop:
With e-readers growing in popularity and Barnes & Noble planning to eliminate 30% of their stores within the next 10 years, it seems the days of perusing bookstores for a good summer read are numbered.
But perhaps brick-and-mortar stores can be saved with a high-tech makeover.
Nothing against technology but when it comes to books it is, at best, a complement not a replacement. Our culture is literally built on the book and its physical manifestations, to think that the future of the book resides in some cloud instead of your hands seems a bit premature.