Are books a thing of the past ?

Surprised you think this, OP. How old is the grand daughter?

We both read, mainly at bedtime or if we go away, real books, as do my daughter and granddaughter. We only have about a dozen books in the house and are regular library users.
I have tried reading online, just doesn’t suit.

Kindle is linked to Amazon, isn’t it? So if a book isn’t on Amazon, it isn’t on Kindle. Several of the books I have read want to read aren’t on Amazon.

I read a lot and have found a website that teaches English, it's excellent for learners and helps you understand English much better, it is a UK one. Its called GrammarBox.co.uk

Books are essential if you can read them, but the problem is finding the time to read on a Kindle reader, I've got a lot of books that way

I too am an avid reader and read both books and on my Kindle.
I love buying new books, one of my favourite things to spend my money on.
I tend to use my Kindle when travelling as it is a lot easier than carrying physical books around.
My three oldest DGD's don't ready anymore but the two youngest, 8 and 11 love a good story.
We have just returned from a cruise and there was a library on the ship. It was an amazing place but 7 days wasn't long enough to read very much,

Im an avid reader but I prefer my kindle to physical books. My eyesight isn't wonderful and kindles are a godsend to me. I understand the tactile aspect of a physical book but other than that I don't see why 'proper' books are seen as superior in some way. It's the same author and story whatever medium you read it on. Having said that I do love visiting bookstores although I would actually purchase a book I liked the look of on my kindle.

Not for me they aren't, but then I've always really enjoyed reading books.

Are books a thing of the past?

Of course not. I popped to our village library yesterday to return and collect some books. I was a bit later than I usually am. My visit coincided with the end of the school day. All of a sudden the library was buzzing with primary school children bringing back piles of books, browsing the shelves for more and collecting books they had ordered from other libraries.

Just because a book in a charity shop looks brand new doesn’t mean it hasn’t been read. I buy a lot of new books. I am very careful when I read them not to make the pages dirty or break the spines. If I donate them, they still look new.

I’d long been bit a squirrel when it comes to keeping books, even after I’ve read them. I love being surrounded by books. However, during lockdown when libraries were closed and far-flung friends on tighter budgets were desperate for something new to read, I started to break the habit and passed them on. One of those friends runs a community library stocked by donation so the books end up there next.

I still have thousands of books, all left to Oxfam in my Will. I am slowly whittling the numbers down while I am alive. I send a couple of boxes a month to Oxfam and enjoy seeing them listed online.

According to The Bookseller, the UK book market revenue rose 1.5% in the first half of 2026, despite a 1.1% fall in volume sales.

The UK sold 82 million print books between January and June 2026 making it the second-largest market covered by the analysis after France, where 124 million books were sold. Across the 19 territories surveyed, 11 recorded year-on-year revenue growth, led by India, up 16.7%, and Brazil, up 12.6%. Australia grew 5.6%, New Zealand 7.2% and Italy 5.1%, while France fell 5.4% and Poland 11.7%.

archive.is/20261011212521/https://www.thebookseller.com/news/uk-book-market-revenue-rises-15-as-fiction-drives-international-growth#selection-1591.0-1591.387

Books are absolutely not a thing of the past! Of course they're not, what a question! Just because the media pumps out dumb statements like this all the time, it doesn't mean we have to swallow them whole. Written information is essential to human life and digital alternatives just don't hack it (for all the reasons every thinking person should have become aware of by now). Here's a (long) quotation I love:
"Given the right training in reading old handwriting and knowledge of the relevant languages, we can read books that are more than a thousand years old without much difficulty. By comparison, we have trouble recovering digital files stored only a few decades ago in superseded formats on obsolete hardware." (Tom Mole, ^The Secret Life of Books^)

When CDs were really popular Amazon gave you a download with each CD. Shame they can't do that with books. I hate to pay for an e-book which is hidden away on my iPad but as I read a lot it is very convenient with Kindle Unlimited (now Kindle+). I am conflicted!

I’m an avid reader and always have been , as are my AC who wizzed through books as children . They both commute on public transport and read then.
I read both a kindle and paper books . And buy my books in a charity shop .
My kindle is great for holidays and as I read before bed , I don’t need the light on which disturbs my DH .
Judging by the sales of books in my charity shop, books are still very popular.
Mostly by older people though .

madeleine45

At the age of 81 I wonder just how many books I have read over the years. I could read before I was 4 and came from a family of readers, especially my beloved granny, who when she first moved to a smallholding she had bought, had no electricity to begin with. So it was lovely tilley lights and the wonderful evenings where she had two big old armchairs that also had sort of sides up above your head, so that you snuggled down, shielded from the draughts, close to the aga fire, with the occasional sound of logs or coal shifting, and the gentle hiss of the tilley lights, which gave good light to read by. We sat, engrossed in our books, but with the company of each other, and the dogs lying on the rug. Wonderful memories. I progressed through school, reading all sorts of things and once doing a literary Oliver Twist, when I asked the school librarian if they had any more books as I had read all the fiction books they had. She did not believe me and tested me by picking out random books and asking what they had been about. When I could answer every thing she asked I was told to wait there , and she went off and came back with three more teachers and proceeded to repeat the procedure. I started to feel worried because they talked quietly amongst themselves and kept looking at me, but was then reassured by the english teacher going off and coming back with a new - to me - book and promising more to come. Years later when I began to work in London, I felt starved of book time, but then got into the pattern of adding a book to my bag for the tube to join my book by the bed and the other by the chair and the library books each week. So life has gone on and books have been there through good and bad, and are still precious to me. Favourite old books console and cheer me during difficult times, new travel books inspire me to still go physically if I can to other places, or if not I can get a patch of reading everything I can get my hands on about a place and enjoy that. I get hooked on a particular author and ready every book they have written and still my great pleasure is to go into a second hand book shop to find who knows what. My friends and family know that a book token is still a favourite birthday or christmas present. Books have been a joy and libraries my favourite places in life, and as a teacher and lecturer I hope that I have passed on the love of reading to others. However they do it, so long as they read and enjoy it , it is the reading that frees their minds but I shall remain an ardent actual book reader for the rest of my life.

What a beautiful dedication and so true! Thank you.

For me, it really depends on the book. If it is a classic or one with sentimental value, it stays. If it is a passing read, it goes onto my Kindle. Many books from my parents' house and from my younger days are now out of print and if you check them out on Amazon, they demand quite a hefty price. Also, there are some books that were written during the 19th century or by great academics which hold a place on a bookshelf as being a one off. It really does depend on the book.

My son works for a major publisher. When ebooks were first launched for a while they dominated sales and then slowly there was a return to the physicsal book, many want to hang on to that form. Most are aware who work in industries associated with books, the biggest threat to them is the wilful destructiveness of AI.

I ran a small voluntary English Library for 13 years. It was noticeable in that time how reading of physical books diminished. Post Covid people has got used to using e readers and did not go back to physical books. The library is still running but only a handful of die hard book worms borrow books. I agree with watermeadow information books are largely obsolete now due Google etc.
I prefer physical books but because I read a lot it is expensive to get English books delivered here. I now use a kindle albeit reluctantly.

Unfortunately, physical books seem to be dying out with all the e-readers, etc.

I don't like e-stuff and won't read that way; I much prefer physical. My flat has more books and bookshelves than walls!

I recently had delivered from Amazon another paperback and another hardback!

I have a lot of books, in fact, I find it hard to cull them (I do pass on light reads that have been passed to me). I still buy books too as I love the feel of them. However the kindle has its uses, too, especially whilst travelling.
Some books I just don’t like on a kindle, for eg, recipe books or reference books.
I think that there is a place for both and I don’t ever see physical books ever ceasing to be published or purchased.

Franbern

One of my teenage g.children absolutely loves reading - and for her - it has to be books.
Her bedroom is totally overwhelmed with all the shelves her Dad has put up for these and so is the rest of their house. She never goes out without taking two or three books with her.
Will not even consider a kindle which has been offered to her on several occasions. Even my offer to try one out by using an old one of mine was met with polite but insistent refusal. has to be a book, nothing else.

That's brilliant, am heartened to hear it !

Aveline

When we moved house we were overrun by books. They ended up in double layers on the floor by the time we moved. I got rid of them all. My trusty Kindle is jam packed with books now. I used it only for leisure reading and it has a lovely cover. I don't miss real books and I've been an avid reader since I learned to read at 3 (I was at a no nonsense nursery school!)

Snap Aveline, this is exactly what we did too.

Now books for us come from the library or charity shops and are returned there.

However we do have a lot of children’s books around for Gchn to pick up when they are here, and those give us a great deal of fun. I don’t think children’s books work so well on screens as the relationship with the illustrations can be lost.
Christmas and bday presents for Gchn are always hardback books.

And the well thumbed dictionary, which has now lost its cover, lives on the kitchen table.

Our 6 year old grandson loves books, always has. With children, I don’t think that will change. Certainly not in families like his where a screen is the go to of last resort, long car journeys for example.

One of my teenage g.children absolutely loves reading - and for her - it has to be books.
Her bedroom is totally overwhelmed with all the shelves her Dad has put up for these and so is the rest of their house. She never goes out without taking two or three books with her.
Will not even consider a kindle which has been offered to her on several occasions. Even my offer to try one out by using an old one of mine was met with polite but insistent refusal. has to be a book, nothing else.

I love books and really couldn’t live without them. Our new houses has a ‘snug’ room and we’re lining the walls with bookshelves to create a ‘library’ something I’ve always wanted!
My most treasured books are a complete set of Dickens, my Grandmother was presented with them in 1913 for being best in the school in Latin and English.

What has become obsolete is information books, like cookery and gardening. Don’t we all ask Google instead?
Also anything like school, technology and old non-fiction books because they’re out of date.
Matching sets of classics or old novels are no use to charity shops, nobody’s going to buy them.
I buy all my books from charity shops and swap with friends.

I absolutely LOVE books. You would have to carry me away , kicking and screaming if you said I couldn't have books any more.My DH, my DC, my DGC all love reading and despite all of them being very 'tech' minded, all prefer physical paper books !
My worry now isn't that books are dying out, my worry is they are being copied by AI as it learns to 'Write', thus putting authors out of a job. That's when I get really concerned about the future of books.