James Gleick in the Times Sunday Review: Let's Say Kaddish for Printed Paper Books

James Gleick in Sunday Review of the Times writes today about "Books and Other Fetish Objects." We think Gleick is a genius and if he says that real physical books are over, we believe him, we agree with him and we move on.

And that is what he says. He loves books, as do we. He admits that handling rare books is a trip. We agree. But he makes it clear that digitized books are here and they are the present and the future of all writing and communications.

We agree. And we agree even more because we published our first Kindle book TODAY. Yay. It took a while to format and format and format the darn thing. But we think we got it right. Amazon asked us if we want them to determine the price in international currencies. We said yes.

So in 24 hours or however long it takes, our book will be downloadable all over the world.

And yes, we get royalties. More important, we get to influence thinking about religion all across the globe. Instantly.

Yes, like Gleick, we love books. We have a house filled with books. Dead tree books. We like to hold them and feel their heft. We like to smell them and sense their new or old aromas.

But paper books are dead. And though Gleick does not come right out and say it, we will. It is time to say Kaddish for the printed paper book.