An article from last week's edition of The Economist deal with the future of readings and books. Some excerpts I found pertinent:

"So who is going to read the millions of pages that Google and its colleagues are so busy digitising? Some people will read them on-screen, some will use Google as a taster for books they will then buy in paper form or borrow from a library, and still more will use it to look for specific snippets that interest them. (...) So books that people would not traditionally read in their entirety, or that require frequent updating, are likely to migrate online and perhaps to cease being books at all. Telephone directories and dictionaries, and probably cookbooks and textbooks, will all fall into this category.

With non-fiction the situation is more nuanced. (...) What about all the genres of books that fill a different human need? Certainly, some types of fiction—novels as well as novellas—are also likely to migrate online and to cease being books. Many fantasy fans, for example, have already put aside books and logged on to “virtual worlds” such as “World of Warcraft” (...) Most stories, however, will never find a better medium than the paper-bound novel. That is because readers immersed in a storyline want above all not to be interrupted, and all online media teem with distractions (even a hyperlink is an interruption)"

Why do I blog this? some intriguing ideas here, the underlying variable used by the journalists to express what can be technologically mediated and what cannot is relevant. I also found funny the fact that people may think MMORPG can serve as an alternative immersion to novels.