Books offer a sort of bliss that e-readers can only envy

The book retailer Waterstone’s recently decided to stop selling Kindle e-readers and replace them with traditional books after a big fall-off in sales of the devices.

And that’s great news for nosey parkers as well as book publishers.

Because there’s no point snooping around someone’s house to see what their literary influences are if everything they read is stored on an electronic device the size of, well, one small book.

It used to be that you could find out so much about a person by the books they read, the music they listened to and the television programmes they sat down to watch.

Then came the e-reader, the iPod and the world of Netflix – and no longer was there any tangible evidence of the things that floated their boat.

I’ve bought into most of the technology myself, but I try to alternate between a printed book and an electronic one.

I still buy music even if it’s not as much as before and I still tend to think of a box set as an actual thing as opposed to a folder on the Sky+ box.

Perhaps it’s being older; you need to own the book, the album, the DVD – a younger generation, with far more sense, only wants to know where to access it without having it filling up their space.

And while we’ll never go back to the pre-digital days, you can see that the few music stores we have left all have a vinyl section to cater for growing demand.

Book stores might be thinner on the ground too, but those that are still here would seem to be thriving, offering a greater range and diversity than ever before.

And there has always been something about an actual book that makes it more than simply a set of pages that makes up a story.

Opening a book and turning the pages somehow lifts the wear and tear of the day from your shoulders and allows you to wallow in someone else’s words and imagination.

It needs a big armchair, a reading light and – depending on the time of day or night – a nice coffee or glass of something stronger.

Reading a book is an event in itself, a sensory experience, whereas the Kindle is just another electronic device.

Not that the Kindle – or any e-reader – doesn’t have its advantages; if you’re an avid reader on holidays, one small electronic device can hold more books than a small library.

And the pages don’t get soaked by the side of the pool – although if it slips into the water or onto the tiles, it’s a lot more expensive to replace than a single book.

Waterstone’s found that print sales rose by close on per cent in the year to September, accounting for almost €1billion in revenue.

Sale of the Kindle haven’t stood still either, but unlike the Apple gurus Amazon don’t seem as hell-bent on coming up with a new one every six months – and that makes Kindle a victim of its own success, because the first one you buy can last for years.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.