Forbes just (today) published an article about the future of the book. The article contradicts what they call the "conventional wisdom" that so many new media options competing for our time put the book in danger. In reality, it concludes, "People are reading more, not less. The Internet is fueling literacy. Giving books away online increases off-line readership. New forms of expression--wikis, networked books--are blossoming in a digital hothouse."

Their special report has a series of great articles dealing with everything from networked books to internet copyright issues to new social forms of writing.

We need a hypertext form that provides strong sequentiality and nuanced visuality. Whatever key may be found to enarrative will include this, although it goes against not only virtually all hypertext theory, but virtually all successful practice with electronic text.

Let me begin by qualifying the statement several ways.

In response to the early brouhaha over etext, Sven Birkerts wrote The Gutenberg Elegies,

Etext has many advantages which were much discussed in