They have brand names such as SoftBook, RocketBook and EveryBook. One day the electronic book will operate on mere light - or through the kinetic energy of our own hand. Such a book is empty - but it is precisely its emptiness that enables it to contain a library, or libraries. I read it and keep it open. Soon we'll be able to load it with any work we want from the net-bookshop.
Readers can use a light-pen to underline and make their own comments in the margins.
That kind of book can be read in bed - a crucial factor for many readers, I've noticed. We've had repeated assurances that the digital and Gutenbergian technologies will continue in peaceful coexistence far into the future. Me, I'm not so sure. In the 19th century a machine was something quite different from what it is today, and I'm sure the concept of what a book is will also change. It will not mean the same thing to the next generation as it still does to us.