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By Andrew Moody Books are rubbish! Not my view but that of the multi-millionaire Austrian-born entrepreneur and scientist Hermann Hauser, a pioneer of the e-reader, who actually used a more vulgar description of German origin. When he made the remark in an interview I did with him in Cambridge in England more than a decade ago I didn't know quite what he meant. I actually thought the physical book was quite an efficient tool you could take just about everywhere. I have been reminded of our discussion after I picked up a copy of English playwright and screenwriter Alan Bennett's latest diaries, Keeping On Keeping On, at London's Heathrow a few weeks ago. It was one of those airport exclusive softback editions and I have struggled to read it ever since. Not because of the content. Bennett, who wrote The History Boys which was a Broadway hit and made into a successful film, is as erudite as ever about the events and routine of his life, but of the difficulties involved in reading an actual book. Reading over a sandwich lunch, the only way I could keep the book open was to weigh one side down with my iPad and the other with my Kindle – perhaps as absurd as it gets. Most of my reading is now done on a Kindle, which I actually turned to reluctantly some five years after the Hauser encounter. Its only drawbacks as far as I have experienced is when you forget to charge it or are not allowed to use it by some airlines until the seat belt signs are switched off. | 
