BOOKS ARE COOL AGAIN

The digital onslaught continues - it has alreadyvirtually replaced your CD collection with MP3's, it's consigned your photo albums to the bottom drawer and taken over much of your viewing. Now it looks as if the digital revolution is very much set to replace those dusty tomes that line your bookshelf.

Sales of electronic books jumped 68.4 percent last year and skyrocketed 177 percent to $96.6 million for the year through August - Reports the Association of American Publishers and in the UK the situation is very much the same with several readers fighting for market dominance.

All told, about 1.2 million e-readers are expected to be sold in the last three months of the year -- roughly 40 percent of the entire year's stock. By the end of 2010, industry experts predict, 10 million people will be carrying e-readers. As for the number of e-books that people have read, they've lost track.

"To me, it's just inevitable when people told me they liked to touch and feel real books. I heard the same thing from LPs and CDs. The mass market, they want convenience and experience." Steve Haber, head of Sony's reading division.

But whatever happens with the digital book market and even if you're horrified at the prospect of regular books vanishing it must be admitted that Ereaders are encouraging people to read and that can only be a good thing. What remains to be seen is if the surge will continue after the novelty value goes away but from my own experience I now read far more on my ereader than regular books. Mind you that could be something to do with having gone through the entire Sherlock Holmes canon in recent months and I've got them all on my Elonex