Getting Used To Reading eBooks

We formed a book club earlier this summer.  I always wanted to do something like that since getting out of school but it was always held back for one thing or another.  Finally, one in our little group took the initiative, picked a book, and we started reading it.  

There is a Kindle.  iPod Touch, iPhone, and a real book.  When we met for the first time a few weeks ago, we only went over the first half of the book.  Over the weekend, I finished the 2nd half.  I had some time so I went to Borders to thumb through the actual book to look up some thing that I had a question about.  I was using the iPhone version of Kindle and to my knowledge, there isn't a search or note-taking function.  That's an entirely shortcoming that's Amazon's fault, not the whole ereading experience.

As I was thumbing through the book, there was a tinge of nostalgia that I kind of missed from not being able to flip through the book page after page.  I guess I'm still old-school even though I've been reading ebooks since the Palm V days.

And then there's the whole taking notes in paper that is different from doing it on Kindle or Fictionwise's mobile app for the iPhone.  Actually, in my case, the notes I took for the first half of the book was taken on the back of a couple of receipts I had in my pocket when I started reading.  

I don't think books will go away.  Well, at least not in our life time.  I think it's entirely possible we'll see a whole generation grow up reading only electronically.  Meanwhile, I don't expect to give up buying books on Amazon or locally any time soon.  Perhaps as I get more and more used to reading electronically, I will end up buying less physical books.  Still, the whole experience of going to a bookstore, walking up and down isles, and find what I want or just happened to come across a new novel isn't something I'm willing to give up even if ebooks may be cheaper or convenient.