Recently in Shelf Awareness, Grant Buday was quoted as saying that each book has a history: "As objects, they are tangible, tactile, solid. Their spines creak as you open them and their pages lie as individually as a woman's hair on a pillow." He mentioned things you can do with a book but not with an e-reader (e.g., throwing it at the cat). This reminded me of a German textbook I had in college--I can still recall the scent, slightly sweet and the cream-colored pages. Even in the throes of subjunctive tenses, I liked the book as an object. I even threw it, but not at the cat.
E-readers have their uses and are here to stay, but they will never be as tactilely wonderful as a book. Deckle-edged paper, different fonts--Knopf still cites the typeface for its books--smooth covers (but not the sticky matte ones that need a lint brush). I remember getting a new gold-edged Bible, riffling through the untouched pages as they stuck together slightly and then fell apart with a satisfying whoosh. The pages of Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf had dried-blood-red edges in the first edition--a subtle touch for an elegant book. And cookbooks--the pristine page of a new recipe marked with bits of ingredients as a dish becomes a favorite.
Writing in the Millions, Tom Nissley confessed to being a reluctant book fetishist, in reply to Tim Parks, who praised e-books by saying they strip reading down to its essence. Nissley noted that an e-book can be ideal for evaluating literature, but "we don't only read to evaluate. We read to experience, to know, and to remember, and printed books are an aid, not a hindrance, toward those ends." Perhaps even a digital book can be read in conjunction with sensory associations, something "that keeps your books from being entirely pure, gets them a little dirty and adulterated." --Marilyn Dahl, reviews editor, Shelf Awareness