Louisa Pearson: 'Beyond 100 books your
e-reader becomes more environmentally friendly'
By Louisa Pearson in The Scotsman

The first time I heard the word "quagmire" was from my O-grade history teacher, Mr Forrester. He was telling us about the fighting in Abyssinia during the Second World War.
I did memorise the facts for my exams but alas, now, all I can recall is something to do with tanks getting stuck in mud. I must apologise. None the less, a quagmire is exactly what I'm sitting in now. A metaphorical one, you understand.

It started with one of those conversations about iPads. "Why would you bother with actual books when you can just download them?" says he. I paused for a moment, wondering if I should have taken a little longer than nine years of courting before agreeing to marry him. Can a man who prefers an electronic book over the touch, smell and look of a real one ever really be trusted? While mulling this over, I looked around my living room, trying to imagine what it would look like without books. Probably a lot tidier, but that's not the point.

I can report that lots of people feel the same as me. Without real books, "life would be miserable", said one Facebook friend. "The batteries don't run out on books," said another. My next stop was the website Eco Libris (http://www.ecolibris.net/ - it urges you to plant a tree for every book you buy) which has links to what looks like every article ever written on the subject.
Pearson's full piece at The Scotsman.