eBooks - do they take away the essence of reading?  

In my opinion, maybe it does remove that essence a bit. It may be convenient, but I still prefer reading the tangible books. Aside from that, you get to keep and treasure them for long. Plus you get to use a lot of electricity when you read eBooks.

I prefer reading books instead of ebooks. It's easier to flip around the pages with my hands than clicking on the screen. Furthermore, my eyes get tired quickly for viewing the monitor for hours. The good side of ebook is that you can zoom in the small fonts for better view.

I don't think it takes away essence of reading at all.It just goes to show that technology is evolving enabling people to enjoy books in a whole different way.Most of those who buys kindle or any hand held device is still a book lover, they enjoy reading and giving them another way to take their books with them is something that i can appreciate.

Sure there are those who would like the traditional way,carrying around a 500 page book with them to places just so they can enjoy it while some doesn't have the patience nor the space on their bag to carry it thus they purchase an ebook or those handheld devices. Everybody has their own way just so they can get to read that fantastic novel.

Besides on older times, books doesn't exist.All they have are scrolls written on parchment or symbols carved on stones. :P

Though the useof an eBook reader has its merits, there are factors which make them not really an alternative that will replace the conventional books. The first thing is it needs power to run on. The production of electricity n many areas increasses air pollution. For portable ebook readers batteries will run out, and we could be left high and dry with a gadget we could not use.

A book needs not need batteries or electricity to be read. There are many positiond we can take while reading a book. Trees can be replamted.

I prefer a physical book rather than an ebook version.

First of all, we need to know the essence of reading. In my humble opinion, be it from an ebook or a book in print, as long as we learn something from it, isn't that the essence that we are concerned about? I think reading will be revolutionized with the emergence of electronic ebook readers like the Kindle.

I think that depends on the reader. I love to read and carry a book everywhere I go. I have done e-books when really desperate but certainly prefer a real book. I like curling up, relaxing, escaping. E=books will work in a pinch, but I prefer the real thing.

It's more covenient,so why not.It does for me