'Endangered' Soon

With the ever-advancing technology, nothing could more impossible. It keeps on expanding, (like the universe) and thereby continue to efface some old things and traditions, including the good ones.


E-books are making their way into the market (the equivalent of conventional printed books) in the West and soon to hit the Asia in a larger scale when more people will be baited to purchase electronic devices that support E-books.

The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist Holy text (868 AD), found in a cave in Dunhuang, NW China in 1907 is the earliest printed book to bear a date.

Now that printed books become less popular, bookstores (one of my dream business) are now forced down to close (because they can do nothing easy).


I don't blame Steve Jobs, but this sad thing sucks. Compared to US, Philippines is not that much of a reading nation because:


1. Books here are considered luxury because poverty is myopic.
2. Government does not tax imported books which kills the potential of local and budding writers because there is a tight competition in the market (that's another issue).
3. And kids are taught that everything is in TV. 




In the country, for a book to be regarded as a bookseller it must have sold 2,ooo copies (at least). Or ask Jessica Zafra for an update for the figure.


Photos of bookstores closing down because nobody wants them anymore breaks my heart. And this is not the right way to save trees.

"I cannot live without books." --- Thomas Jefferson

I don't want E-books because I can no longer ask Audrey Niffenegger for an autograph someday. And I will always love to smell the pages of newly-opened books.


* Images are gathered through the wires. Credits to their rightful owners.