The new craze for the E-Reader has sent my mind into a tizzy. This revolutionary device is so exhaustive, so advanced, that it is spreading the word in every possible sense – but what of the effect on the old fashioned book? What havoc shall this slick, stream line instrument wreck upon the aesthetic of the novel; the daily rag; the tattered comic book?

Now that we can store all our books in one multi-purpose device, we are essentially homogenising our favourite collection at the expense of individuality. We all have our peculiar little foibles when it comes to books: do you scribble in the margins? Do you thumb along or lightly flick?  Or have you felt ever so slightly attracted to a stranger on a train because you noticed they’d dared to lug Dostoevsky’s tome aboard? Do you treasure those picture books and story books from childhood; torn, chewed and dribbled upon. And do you remember learning to read? Running you hand across the pages, biting into the words and munching on poems, allowing the juice to run down your chin as you feel the sensations of new sounds seep into your vocabulary.

Yes, we have so many experiences with text so carefully placed in our memories. Regardless, the advent of the E-Reader threatens to turn us into an army of identikit lecteurs, and all for just a couple of hundred pounds. Until the newer models come out that is; then the competition kicks in to see which marketing team drives the best deal. Do not be fooled, this is not the triumph of the word – this is a cold, hard cash-driven revolution and if you don’t like it you can blog or tweet your contempt as much as you like, but you’ll be guaranteed that everyone else will be following your tirade on screen. Sadly, it appears that the hapless book worm is being slowly exterminated in the era of the repellent dot-com boom.

Ah, even the Good News cannot evade the microchip! Certainly, the universality and openness of the E-Reader has its benefits. Yet we must not lose sight of the importance of what it means to truly read. Speed readers look away now, for an avid reader is one that continually strives to question, revoke and tussle with the meaning of a text. Certainly, what the Word does not and has never purported to offer is ease of understanding. A ‘user-friendly’ gospel?  Indeed, we would be foolish to believe that all texts can be so easily digested. As if the Bible and Qur’an were as legible as the back of a cereal box!

To read and truly understand requires time and effort on our part – virtues that are acutely threatened by the endless waves of technology that promise bigger, better, flasher lifestyles; new and improved ways to learn and more efficient ways to lead our lives; in short, the dot com boom is on a mission to transform the dowdy, slow and gormless human into sleeker, stream-lined versions of ourselves till soon there will exist no distinction between man and machine. Now do yourselves a favour – read with your eyes open, and remember the Word above all is not to be confuted by the machine.

Amy