TRX
04/22/2014

Originally Posted by Brad426
What's a book? Is that like an old Kindle?

...pretty much, except it doesn't need batteries, or an internet connection, or have copy protection. In fact, mostly made with all-natural organic, sustainable materials, and readable with natural or artificial light.

Books-A-Million, at least the one we had that finally folded a few years back, is the place where old books go to die, after the warehouses decide they're not worth the storage space. Sure, there'll be some NYT "best sellers" in racks up front, with the tchochkis and videos, but after that it's just "Amazing DOS 3.1" and "Prodigy for Dummies." And they were all priced at full retail, sometimes with an additional price increase to adjust for inflation.

I dunno, all this paper and electronic ephemera... get it wet, or any of a dozen other occurences, and it's gone. Baked clay, now *that* is permanent storage! They're still digging four thousand year old baked clay tablets out of the ground; how long do you think that stack of backup tapes and DVDs is going to be readable?