Thanks for the shot of reality, Graham. I do believe that you hit on a key point, though. The web, with its multi-way communications between "real people" (like you and me buddy) is actually retrieving much of that oral tradition that we lost as a literate print-based society.

Books won't die, but they are bound to be usurped by the ubiquitous electronic surround. Books will become a pleasure but no longer a necessity; kind of like the fountain pen. It's not what "I" want, but it's the pattern that I see.