Death of the Paperback?

I've been mulling this over for quite some time and have often wondered with all the new technology whether good old paperbacks are going to become a thing of the past.

On the train a few months ago, I saw a fellow commuter with one of Amazon's reader things. We can't get them here in Canada, and apparently someone she knows in the US got it for her. I asked her if I could have a look at it.

It's a bit bigger than your average paperback and sits in a little case so it almost looks as if you are holding a book. It has buttons on the bottom for scrolling, etc. Over Christmas, Sony came out with a Digital Reader for about $250, which I thought was too expensive.

Plus, there's something I like about the feel of the book in my hands, turning the pages, and being able to look back at all those pages I read with a sense of accomplishment.

On CBC's Letter from London, posted on May 13th, they ran THIS STORY about the Espresso Book Machine, named as such because of it's ability to print books quickly to order. The story questions whether this will revolutionize publishing, and whether this will help the traditional bookshops to stay open, since it is so hard for them to compete with global online sellers such as amazon.com. It's a pretty interesting story.