Depends what they do with it. A physical bookshop, with all the extra expenditure on rent, staff, etc can't compete with Amazon on price, so it needs to find a way to add value elsewhere. I'm sure it can be done, but not by providing a book equivalent of Tesco! They need to find a completely new tack.

Nothing beats going into a book store and physcially browsing. I hardly ever buy books on Amazon, but that's because I'm impatient. I can't be bothered waiting for them to turn up. I want to walk into a shop, spend time browsing and go home with books I want to read, that day. 'Stay away from your potential. It's like your bank balance. There's never as much of it as you think.'

And don't forget to click your heels together three times.

x 'Stay away from your potential. It's like your bank balance. There's never as much of it as you think.'

Absolutely Pam- e-readers are fantastic, especially for traveling, and they are here to stay.

I'm angry with myself for assuming that a printed book would one day be obsolete, like a CD or cassette. Do listen the radio 4 interview. This guy means business, and it's great to hear fighting talk from a bookseller again--perhaps it needs to be said more--Amazon is your enemy. Waterstones are in a unique position to present a viable alternative to the 'choice' that amazon offer. Yes, some e-books are peanuts to buy, but it's like that old 3-for-2 offer-- 'I'll buy the book I want, then 2 shite books that I can get for free..yaas!'

Personally, I'm putting my shoes back on, getting off my lard ass and walking to the bookstore. Who's with me?

The problem with Waterstones's is that while this guy is talking the talk, plans proceed for actual stores to be closed. Book shelves are disappearing in those that remain, being replaced by games and novelties. The coffee shop space gets ever bigger.

When the Russian asset-strippers bought Waterstone's from HMV they did so because it was cheap access to prime location sites, not because Mamut has some affinity for books.

The so-called Waterstone's e-reader will probably go the same way as the famed Waterstone's app for the iPad - lots of talk, no action. How can a tiny backwater store like Waterstone's, which is committed to store closures, possibly produce anything to rival the pending Amazon tablet, due out any time now?

Waterstone's cannot even successfully sell the e-readers they stock. The staff know nothing about the books in the WS e-chart, and do not even have in-store access to their own e-chart.

We're currently a top-ten seller in the Waterstone's echarts and while that's very nice to say,we've also been to the top of the Kindle UK chart. The actual sales numbers required to get top ten on Waterstone's, compared to a similar position on Kindle UK, are quite depressingly low.

I'm sure Waterstone's e-store will expand. After all, it's money for old rope. But any expansion will be to the detriment of the bricks and mortar stores. Every new e-book reader is one less real book customer.

If this alleged e-reader ever materialises it will be spring 2012. How many Waterstone's stores will there still be? How many more metres of bookshelving will have disappeared from those that remain?

And by spring 2012 exactly how many people who want an e-reader will not have already bought a Kindle, an Amazon tablet, a nook, an iPad or any of the other devies that will be out in the next few months in time for the Xmas bonanza?



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