Let me just say, the eReader vs. paper book rivalry is rather a non-issue with me. I personally think that electronic books, be it on an iPhone, computer, or eReader, will not and never can replace a physical book with a beautiful marred, scarred binding and histories of past readers and places pressed in pages that you can touch and smell with your senses. That being said, I do not look down on anyone because they have an eReader (heck, I have an eReader); the story is not the book. The story is the words in the book, and yet not even that–the story is an idea which the words represent.
The story is a thought which the author has crafted in their mind and planted in yours. The story takes root in your head and it grows in whatever way your imagination wants it to, not strictly the way it is put down in words. The story is immortal, intangible, and becomes real in whatever form it takes: written, oral, pictorial, or dramatised. The story speaks through whatever medium. We who love paper books simply prefer that form; but the story–the story transcends form and infects every channel through which it is passed.
There is more to think about than binding, ink, and paper: the story is more than that and the story is what lives in your heart long after eReaders die and paper books burn.
Fictitiously Yours 