Letter : Too soon to write off books and switch on to the Internet

Sir: "Have we reached the end of the book?" asks John Walsh. This article has had many pegs: the arrival of the cinema (before 1910), of the radio (1920s), of television (1940s), of the VCR (1970s), and now the Internet. I can hardly believe that somebody is getting paid to write it again.

Young people today have a wonderful choice of media for learning and entertainment. They avail themselves of all these media. There was never a time when everybody read books in preference to going to the music-hall or the pub sing-song. There was never a time when one medium eclipsed its predecessors.

Mervyn Jones

London SW1