Digital books and music might be the ultimate convenience, placing our entire heritage at our fingertips - but we risk losing the very ephemera that makes us who we are, says Jim Davies
There's something so beautifully simple and seductive about the iPad, that for a moment it had me on the turn. Yes, I could finally imagine myself reading a novel on screen, an act of unutterable profanity I'd previously railed against in these very pages. Don't get me wrong, given the choice I'd still plump for good old ink and paper, and the rival digital tablets leave me cold. But even so, now there's a teeny chink in my armour I really didn't foresee.
As it happens, I'm already carrying around the Complete Works of Shakespeare and a hefty PG Wodehouse compendium on my mobile phone. The pair of them cost me just over #1 to download, and I smile at the ironic clash of cultures whenever I remember...