In "Les Bibliotheques Francaises sous l'Occupation," Marine Poulain describes how the Nazis stole about 10 million books over four years from both French public and private libraries.

I can't help but think that had Google been around in 1939, this would not have happened. And thanks to them, it will never happen again.

For all that we are debating about the good and bad of digitizing books, or how technology will affect the way we read, manipulate ideas or simply create them, one can only rejoice at the fact that "out-of-print" can be deleted from the dictionary and that robbing a people's cultural patrimony is forever dead.  

Keeping an eye on what is popping up in the E-reading department, it is hard to miss the annoucement by Plastic Logic of their "flexible" display...it’s thinner than a pad of paper, lighter than many business periodicals".

Engadget describes it in these terms: "a display more than twice the size of the wee Kindle while suffering just half the ugly."

Twice as beautiful than Kindle...that is a winner right there.