Hmmm. 1) I'm a big font snob. It astounds my friends but I can recognize a dozen fonts by sight (not bad for an engineer who has never mastered Photoshop and opened InDesign once). I'm used to screenplays, which require Courier New of you; there's no such requirement in publishing. Yet we invariably get some form of Times New Roman. The one example that's different that I can think of is Douglas Coupland's Generation X which was done in OCR-A, and it really made a big difference... so it's not like people don't do this because it doesn't matter, they don't do this because they're lazy. 2) I love paper. There are so many different weights, so many different textures. Yet books are always on thin-ass copy paper. Not bond. Not vellum. Not anything interesting. 3) I love layout. Yet books are always laid out the same. It comes down to this - authors are putting words out there and everyone else is doing it exactly.thesame.fucking.way for every goddamn book ever made. You hardly even get any size variation - paperbacks are this big. Hardcovers are that big. Uniformity. Inanity. Forever and ever amen. So when you talk about the "physicality" and "individual nature" of the book, I reply "what physicality? What individual nature?" They're all the same font on the same paper in the same size and if it's a paperback, if they don't sell it they only want the covers back. On the other hand, my kindle is fucking beautiful. It smells amazing. I love the suppleness of that thing so much that I had a chat with Oberon about what leather conditioner they used and I bought enough of it to hit my couch. And my boots. And my jacket. And my other jacket. And my other jacket. So to you, a book is a magical paper thing of nostalgia and memories and a kindle is a technological trifle that runs out of juice. But to me, a book is a static assembly-line component of mass production and a kindle is a lovely-smelling blue thing that survived even when the electronics were destroyed. (yes, that's my story and photos). The words inside are the same. For me, the choice is "awesome leather thing that happens to plug into USB" or "generic paper thing that breaks a little more every time you open it." Lengthy essay, I know. But yeah. Fuck books, unless they're supadope. One of these days I'll own all twelve volumes.