E-books: don't judge a book by its cover

Shall we autodafé?

This is a burning new subject (no pun intented)
Are e-books going to take over the book world? Our generation has changed its habits, we have adapted ourselves to the many new aspects of the Internet, progressively replacing tv by streaming and radio by..well..streaming. And if I daresay a lot of us read more press on the web than on paper! Is this the future in waiting of the book? Are we going to burn these heavy and obstructing objects now that the new technologies have found a revolutionnary "break your habits" statement on that matter too?

First things first: what is an e-book? (wikipedia definition here)
You may lately have come across one of these in the parisian metro (especially on line 3 or 14). Booming in France, they have existed for some time in the US.
E-book stands for electronic or digital book. It will give you the equivalent of a traditionnal printed book transposed on a digital media. Nothing like a video to help you understand:
Here is the example of the Sony e-book reader:

The Sony E-Book reader is currently investing this new booming market. Amazon's e-book reader: Kindle however leads the race. You can also read e-books on smartphones such as Iphones with the e-reader Stanza. In France SFR will be the first french company to launch an e-book reader.

To look at this video, you think : wow what a neat object. Just like the Ipod, just like the Iphone, this is what we would call a "jewel of technology".
Not only does the aesthetic aspect bluff you but you cannot help but notice its main advantage against books: it's small! and the virtual incredible space it contains can house hundreds of books! Think of putting a hundred hardbacks in your purse. Impossible right?
The confort conditions for reading are bound to improve too.
E-books takes all its advantages from the net.
No bounderies, a unique source to find anything you are looking for. Amazon after all ambitions to be the world's biggest library on the web.
E-books can be downloaded by the minute which makes it much faster and less costly than running to Barnes and Nobles to get your paperback. And soon books will be free.
So clearly this evolution is in the order of things: just like music devices -from cassettes to mp3s-

Except we're not talking about cassettes, we're talking about books!! Books with all the imaginary concepts we know: the mythical library of Alexandria, books and the wisdom they inspire.. Books are associated to a hardcore myth of human intelligence. The book industry is trembling to know if this heart value will crush the shadow of the e-book or just subside.
Still many points make the good old book irreplacable.
Houston we have a technical problem: should you be in the middle of a desert or a badly connected place, the e-book wouldn't stand for long.
Another field in which the book wins: A book has a history: maybe it's the book your first lover offered to you or the book your parents gave to you for christmas. It has passed from their hands to yours as a gift.
Sentimental value is one thing but should a book from Baudelaire or Poe be just one more file on my e-book? Doesn't it deserve a certain gratification, going through the ages as it has done? No, with e-book readers, we are running the same risk as music. Making the book entirely free of charge on the net, thereby decreasing its core value which is sad given their history.
Oh and I often buy books just for their covers.. so much for the "don't judge a book by its cover" motto.

Anyway, I think that technology will have its way and I'm far from being reluctant on the technology side. However I feel that books are precious objects and that they cannot be made obsolete just like that. It has been proven yet again that books are the strongest and most persistent memory storage that exists, better than cds or computer files.
The baseline is : if you had to make a choice, would you rather chose the media or the object?

I would rather not chose and follow the evolution. Soon e-books will democratise themselves, we will all own them for various purposes, including e-learning and it will be quite a useful tool.
But I do not think we will ever truly abandon the paper book. e-books and traditionnal books will be complementary. For now if I had to chose which e-reader I wanted, well I would probably go with the Iphone e-reader Stanza because I think I would probably get an Iphone before buying a (for now) very expensive e-reader. find a description of Stanza here.
If I had the money I would however like to try the sony e-reader : because it is probably the one that gives most comfort for the eyes. No backlighting which is probably one of the biggest setbacks of the other e-readers. The ressemblancy to a book is extreme. But seems like I don't have the money yet: 350 dollars, so I'll just have to wait!