Ten Things You Can't Do with an eBook

We present a guest post by James McGrath Morris, author of Pulitzer : a life in politics, print, and power, and creator of the blog, Santa Fe Literary News.


While descending toward Chicago on a recent flight it came to me that eBooks don’t hold every advantage over the doddering old-fashioned book. There I was lost in a dark and brooding scene of a P.D. James mystery when many of my fellow passengers were instructed to power down their Kindles and iPads and were left to twiddle their thumbs while we circled, touched down, and cruised the endless tarmac of O’Hare Airport.

The experience got me thinking. Are there other things that eBooks can’t do that paper books can? I soon came up with ten. Before I share my list, one disclaimer: I don’t dislike eBooks, so please spare me the accusations that I am Luddite. Just because I mourned the passage of album covers doesn’t mean I don’t play CDs.

Here’s the list:
1. As I mentioned, one can’t read an eBook during take off and landing. Here’s a case where the written word is literally dangerous.
2. eBooks can’t hold bookmarks. Gone will be the days when a child comes home from school with one.
3. You can’t press a four-leaf clover between the pages of an eBook. A book can be a treasure trove of forgotten memories. Who has not had a faded ticket stub fall out of a favorite tome ushering in a remembrance of, say, a Fillmore West concert?
4. You can’t donate an eBook to the library sale. The stock of those sales, with their stacks of John Gunther books, will be frozen in time.
5. You can’t tear out the pages of an eBook. No better way to share a paperback on a backpacking trip through Europe with your traveling companion.
6. You can’t use the cover of an eBook to start a conversation with a stranger. Do you like [fill in the blanks]? I read her previous book.
7. eBooks are spineless. A bookshelf will reveal nothing about the tastes, passions, and education of its owners.
8. One can’t crack the spine of an eBook. The sound is an audible commitment to the book.
9. You can’t smell the pages of an eBook. Ink is an intellectual aphrodisiac.
10. You can’t inscribe an eBook. The saddest of all.