Catching up on my reading, I noticed a clever New York Times essay comparing old school collectors, who reveled in the feel and smell of each book, to e-book readers who can make an acquisition in a single click. (It's a topic I missed in my post 10 Reasons to Hate the Kindles, a list created in the pre-nook, pre-iPad era.) Reading these NYT essays is tricky. New York writers often slather their words in a smooth coating of irony, so it's tough to decipher what a writer really means in her heart of hearts. But reading between the lines (and interpreting the Rohrshach-like coffee stains on the pages) I've come to believe Virginia Heffernan was subconsciously delivering a warning about the health dangers of e-books.

-- When she writes "I have literally no memory of opting to get any of these [books] on Amazon" she means that e-books may cause short-term memory loss.

-- When she writes "I will try to think of my books as Sèvres china," she exposes the hallucinatory effect of staring at a e-reader's ghostly screen.

-- And when she writes "Most of these books were bought impulsively," she warns of the gender-bending impact of e-readers. Soon, women will start grocery shopping like men, buying jars of half-sour pickles, lime-flavored tortilla chips and high-fat, chocolate chip ice cream.

So be warned.