You're hardly alone, man. eBooks and PDFs haven't cut into deadtree publishing (except news, where the content changes so frequently that electronic publishing has an edge). The big problem I see is that you need some kind of "reader" (which for most people is a 50 pound computer), you get eyestrain without a top-of-the-line monitor, and they don't have the tactile feel of paper. Paper satisfies some vague instinct that you should be able to touch words and hold them in your hand. You don't really own them if you can't put them in your pocket or on a shelf.

Several years back I heard about a solution that might really be good enough to replace paper: Electronic paper. Looks and feels like a piece of shiny paper, but the surface is a matrix of liquid crystals just like an LCD screen...only it's flexible, you can roll it up and put it in your pocket. In one vision, when you first unroll it, it's showing a directory of all the books and other stuff it holds. Touch a title--it's touch-sensitive--and the menu disappears and you see the first page of the book. In a variation, the piece of smart paper has a little wireless transceiver that lets it ask the room it's in what's available in its library; or it could turn into a browser and ask for an Internet connection.

I like it. I recall reading announcements last year about working prototypes, so you might see it show up in stores in just a few years.