Will e-books spell the end of great writing?...

... asks Tim Adams in the Observer.

I certainly hope so as it might enable fourth-raters like me to get a look in.

Seriously, Tim Adams makes the good point that the physicality has now gone out of writing, with consequences that are hard to predict. I remember when I was growing up how much fun I got out of the physical act of writing, changing writing styles, pens and inks with gay abandon well into my time at university. On an allied note, I can remember, too, my first acquaintance with "literary style", when I came across the expression "as it were". Writing for me became a pretext for fitting in "as it were" and very soon "so to speak", on every occasion and regardless of meaning. Thus "The cat sat on the mat" became "The cat, so to speak, sat on the mat, as it were".