books on demand

blackwells have recently revealed an "espresso book machine" in their Charing Cross store. the book is essentially a huge database of texts (mostly out-of-copyright, but new publishers constantly added) which you can select, print and bind on the machine within 5 minutes. that, in my humble opinion, is very very cool.

obviously we've all had access to sites like project gutenberg for a while now, but reading off a screen just doesn't compare to reading a book in print, and i for one would be willing to pay for a hard-copy. as more and more publishers come on board, and the machine is spread nationwide, it means any bookshop can begin to compete with amazon on a stock level, without any expensive storage costs.

the only downside i can see is that the machine, although I'm sure it has a browsing option, won't compare with wandering around a bookshop and picking up random titles (i'm easily attracted by flashy covers). but then, nor can amazon, and they've never seemed to struggle...