Nick Page

OK, so what can eBooks give you that real, physical books can’t? Choice. Theoretically, you’ll be able to access millions of books instantly. You’ll be able to carry thousands of books round with you. Why you should want to carry thousands of books round with you isn’t immediately clear; research, perhaps, or education, or travelling. [...]

The third reason why I don’t think books are going to go away in a hurry is that they have been around a long time. This, obviously, is not a cast iron defence. Lots of ancient practices which have survived for many years have been swept away overnight by modern technology. Take the horse and [...]

There’s another aspect to the physicality of books. Books have a kind of terrain; they are 3D objects. You know, roughly, where a passage comes in the book, by its physical position – how far in, whereabouts on the page. Of course, search functions can easily locate a certain passage in an eBook, and you [...]

If you thought the Mont Blanc Gandhi Pen was spectacularly ill-judged, then prepare to applaud Leica for their three limited edition cameras to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of People’s Republic of China. The camera body has ‘Mao Zedong front type’ and a ‘Tiananmen Square pattern.’ (I don’t know what that pattern looks like. Bloodstains, perhaps?) [...]

I’m going to start with a few things in defence of the traditional book. The first thing I’d like to chuck into the mix is that books are more than just containers of information. The eBook phenomenon seems to be based on the idea that the only thing that matters about a book is the [...]

This is, by all accounts, the year of the eBook. After all, according to Amazon, more eBooks than physical books were sold on Christmas Day 2009. It looks a startling fgure, until, of course, you realise that eBooks were the only thing that was going to get delivered on Christmas Day. It was a piece [...]

I’m currently writing a book on the history of the Bible, with the subtitle ‘God’s Dangerous Book’. Rarely has this sense of danger been so graphically illustrated than in the case of the Jewish teenager who caused a terrorist alert when he put on teffilin – aka phylacteries – small boxes containing portions of scripture. [...]

King David’s declining years are movingly described in the first chapter of 1 Kings: ‘King David was now an old man, and he always felt cold, even under a lot of blankets. His officials said, “Your Majesty, we will look for a young woman to take care of you. She can lie down beside you [...]

Just when you think the US can’t get any stranger… Apparently US gun sights supplier Trijicon adds Bible references to its high powered rifle sights. Yes, you too can invade a country with a high-powered rifle engraved with 2COR4:6 – 2 Corinthians 4.6 which reads: “For it is the God who said, “Let light shine [...]

A man who posted a joke on his twitter page about blowing up Robin Hood airport has been arrested under the Anti-terror laws. Paul Chambers vented his frustrations when the airport was closed following snow disruption by typing in a comic threat to blow ‘the airport sky high!!’ (Note the two exclamation marks. Bad punctuation [...]