30% of British households don't own a book.

[watercooled]

Why is it, when someone happens to have a preference for existing technology or whatever, some people think it's acceptable and applicable to call them something like a 'Luddite snob'. The world would be a very boring place if we all liked the same thing, and jumped on any shiny new bandwagon. Personally, I'm generally interested in new technology, but it doesn't mean I'm going to rush out and buy it just because the companies producing it claim it to be superior than its predecessor - that's for me to judge, and quite often, it's simply not the case for me.

Anyway, I do own a ton of books, largely factual and science/history related, but I occasionally read some fiction. I'm not a particularly fast reader, and tend to read before bed, but I like to really understand what I'm reading rather than quickly skimming over it and getting a general idea. I also prefer books over e-readers for many of the reasons people have already mentioned, and just because it's simply what I prefer. Another reason to add, there are a few stories of the likes of Amazon messing up their DRM, revoking someone's licenses for no reason, only rectified when they went public about it. It seems, again, you're *licensed* to read a book, you don't own it, and you're relying on the company to not suddenly revoke them - that can't happen with a physical book!

[Primum Agmen]

I always found this a bit odd. Not 6 feet from me are well over 300 books in the bedroom bookshelf, and there are another 1,000+ waiting to find new homes wherever I can fit them.

Not even owning one is a pretty poor showing.