WE are reading more, not less, but not reading books. We spend more time reading "materials" on the Internet. The good news is the Internet has rekindled a new interest in "reading". Interneters (I didn't coin that word, OK) spend hours surfing, hopping from one item to the next, jumping from one website to another with ease.

The Internet has changed everything, including how we acquire knowledge and information. Ignore the Internet at your peril. Politicians who brush aside the power of Internet postings are in for a shock. Blogs are redefining the world of information, for better or worse. Bloggers are said to be a force to be reckoned with in today's political climate, rightly or wrongly.

Should we not put up the R.I.P. sign for books? Books have endured the onslaught of TV, believed to be the devil in multicolour coating out to push books to their grave. Actually, more books were published during the golden era of TV.

Today, a book is published every 30 seconds. A million new titles are published every year the world over. But can books survive the Internet era? Why not publish books online only? After all, media organisations are scrambling to make adjustments to accommodate the digital challenge.

Sales of newspapers are dwindling in many countries. Is the digital newspaper the answer to the broadsheets and tabloids in their traditional form? Would online newspapers entice the young?
What about books? Would the future generation read nursery rhymes only in digital form? Are we going to access the rich oral traditions of the Malays only in e-books?

What would happen to moral stories like Batu Belah Batu Bertangkup and Si Tenggang or the fantasies of Malim Dewa and Hikayat Anggun Cik Tunggal? What about the books we read when we were young - Prisoner of Zenda and King Solomon's Mines? Would future generations only read them online?

Perhaps some of us are just too romantic about books in their traditional form. A book is a book regardless of the form it takes, some would argue. After all, the glorious era of books is over. We are heralding a brave new world for books and publishers as the result of information technology.

We are talking about "tablets" - gadgets that mimic printed books. The Kindle is said to be the Holy Grail of future books. You can read Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, Umberto Eco and A. Samad Said any time, anywhere. So what is the problem?

After all, the young would certainly embrace it. They would be grateful if there is such a gadget. In their world, public libraries are fast becoming white elephants. Why go to libraries to do research when they can get everything they need from the comfort of their rooms? Knowledge and information is just a click away.

I must confess, I surf the Internet a lot. I may not be as savvy as my children, but the Internet has changed my perception of many things - knowledge-gathering, particularly.

I must admit, surfing the Internet is taking a big toll on my reading. I tend to agree with the latest findings that Malaysians spend hardly 22 per cent of their time reading, including news-papers. I am not sure if surfing the Internet is also considered "reading".

First things first, don't just blame it on the Internet. TV is vying for our attention as well. We spend a quarter of our free time watching TV. I am a TV addict, too, and watch hundreds of movies a year. I do not have that much time to read books these days. I am not alone. It is a dilemma bedevilling everyone who still has a passion for books. Perhaps, they are the dying species of the Internet era.

That is why we need J.K. Rowling. She single-handedly saved the book industry, particularly that of children's books. In The Irresistible Rise of Harry Potter, Andrew Blake pointed to the fact that Rowling's books had helped in the 25 per cent increase in the sales of children's books in the United States and United Kingdom.

The way I look at it, the phenomenon is good for the book industry on the whole. It helps draw children away from TV, the iPod, Internet and anime, at least for a while.

Why should we return to books? Sentimental reasons, you might argue. Well, I've been an editor and a journalist my entire adult life. I spent many years in the world of publishing. And writing.

Just like David Denby's confession in his Great Books: My Adventure With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World, I simply got "sick" at one point. I realised that I was living in a world where the beauty of the written word was lost. Images were redefining the world I lived in.

The media is pushing literature to the periphery. I longed for the genius of creativity as evident in literary works. I had lost my bearings in a convoluted world of heightened anxieties and information overload. I am a dinosaur in the world of the young.

Perhaps it is true there is such a thing as "the disappearance of reading". The truth is, we should go back to reading for we have no choice but to revive the permanence of books in an impermanent world.

Perhaps the splendour of letters will keep us sane in a world full of conflict and uncertainty. And we need more than just time for that, we need passion as well. Let's remind ourselves of the different world we live in today. Denby wrote about how he found himself in an immense system of representation and simulacra, yet, "I possessed information without knowledge, opinions without principles, instincts without beliefs".

Perhaps, like T.S. Elliot's poem "The Hollow Men", we are all the hollow men of the modern era - our headpieces stuffed with straw. We are best represented in his famous lines, "shape without form, shade without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion".

That is enough reason for us to go back to reading the good old-fashioned creation that is called "books".