Like warm beer, the sound of willow on leather and bracing walks along a windswept seaside promenade, an easy-paced meander around a bookshop is one of life's genuine pleasures.

I do not subscribe to the view that to be enjoyed, bookshops must be quaint, inaccessible places specialising in obscure literary texts, for as Thomas Carlyle said, "the true university of these days is a collection of books."

Irrespective of their size, I always enjoy the time spent inside a bookshop, be it a mammoth book warehouse like Borders or Waterstone's, or small, second-hand stores similar to the one I used to visit when living in the Wye Valley.

Here, the proprietor would finish the day by hanging a note on his front door, the content of which was a direct function of his afternoon's consumption of alcohol.

Under normal circumstances, his shop opened at 9.30am, although if he had a few too many the sign would read: "Open at 10.30-ish".

Sadly, it's a while since I last paid a visit to this character and his Wye Valley premises, but no doubt he has found the book trade incredibly competitive following the Internet's arrival. From recent evidence, he would not be alone.

Blackwell's, the bookstore founded in Oxford in 1879, maintained a disappointing trend by reporting its ninth consecutive annual loss, up from £6.94m to £10.1m, on a much-reduced turnover of £156m.

The group now has 60 branches dotted around the UK, but there are serious doubts about whether it can remain a private company for much longer, as it battles against the Internet's obvious competitive advantage.

Web-based bookstores do not require premises, employ fewer staff and have no problems with warehousing or storage. Few entrepreneurs starting a bookshop today would contemplate a high street presence. Despite this, Tim Waterstone's relentless pursuit to acquire the high street bookstore chain that bears his name from HMV hit a solid brick wall recently.

Waterstone founded the chain 24 years ago and sold it to WH Smith for £40m in 1993. Since then, he has regularly sought to buy it back and his approach to HMV looked perfectly timed.

Both parties appeared intent on concluding a mutually beneficial deal which valued the Waterstone's chain at some £280m, yet when negotiations collapsed, both Waterstone and HMV's chief executive Alan Giles ended up looking like two schoolgirls hurling catty abuse at each other.

But how can two apparently similar organisations such as Blackwell's and Waterstone's enjoy such contrasting financial fortunes?

The spectre of the Internet will not be disappearing anytime soon, but while Waterstone's appears to embrace the web, Blackwell's announced it will need to invest in a more coherent site if it is to successfully trade upon its not insignificant reputation something which Waterstone's has done for years.

I welcome bookstores branching out, introducing coffee shops and web access to their premises, adding DVDs and CDs to complement magazine and book sales as it creates a buzz about the place, something the Internet cannot offer.

Nevertheless, more than any other retail sub-sector, book shops probably suffer from the increasing tendency for consumers to browse through the products before nipping home and buying the same title online.

For me, a wander around a bookstore remains as enjoyable as ever, but the ease, affordability and convenience of the Internet acts as a serious hurdle to making an investment in the sector.