David McManus says his Kindle can’t replace tactile delights of paper

Being an avid reader and hopeless technology junkie, my two favourite passions clashed head on with the invention of ebook readers.

When they were initially available I had to have one and I remember the day I handed over my credit card in Waterstones to be charged an absurd amount for a Sony PRS-600. Even the special case accessory cost as much as several novels.

The marketing boast was that it could store hundreds of books. Holding it in my hand now after recently rediscovering it in a box in the loft, it feels like all those books had been physically crammed inside it. Hefting the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica would probably require less effort.

Comparing it to the lightweight slice of my modern Kindle Voyage provides a perfect example of how tech has evolved in a few short years.

Both devices are beautiful in their own way; the Sony for its polished aluminium, the Kindle for its understated minimalism but neither of them come close to the tactile glory of a quality book – hence my conflict of approval.

A couple of years ago I learned that it is also possible to develop an emotional connection with a real book. I don’t mean the words themselves – that much is obvious – but the actual physical object they are contained within.

One bored weekend I decided that I was going to sell all my books at a car boot sale so I started the lengthy process of sticking price labels on several bookshelves full of the things. I realised there would be stories that I would want to read again in the future but figured I would simply download them for my Kindle.

It was going to be worth it for all the space I could save.

Not long into the task I gave up on the idea after pulling down an old paperback whose pages were warped and crinkled. Immediately I was taken back to the moment over a decade earlier where I had been reading it, legs dangling over the edge of a swimming pool on holiday in Spain.

My young daughter, maybe three at the time, came running towards me with excited enthusiasm about something and promptly tripped, landing head first into the deep end of the pool.

Obviously I went straight in after her, dropping the book into the water in the process.

Such clear memories could never be recalled from a Kindle. For one thing the device would no longer be around to invoke them.

On the other hand I know that when packing for this year’s fortnight in the sun, my Kindle will save me the space of half a dozen novels.

Ebooks, which are expected to outsell their print siblings by the end of the decade, have also opened up a path for new writers to self-publish without any of the risky expense of print runs. Amazon offers a service that lets anyone enrol and self publish to the Kindle Lending Library. Those writers are then paid a small slice an annual amount reserved by Amazon who in turn makes money by selling devices and library subscriptions.