For the past years a fierce debate has been raging among readers, writers and those in the publishing industry: ebooks versus printed books. Most now agree that there is some place for both. But recently I was reading a romance novel on the Kindle, and I was thinking about how different the experience is to reading a physical-format romance novel. The book was wonderful, but for me, something of the feeling that a romance novel creates in me got lost in reading the story on an electronic device.

Does the medium in which the book is delivered affect the sense, the genre fit and the reading experience thereof?

I read romance novels, and have done since childhood, because I love the escapism they afford and the warm, glowing feeling they give me. But looking at the shelves of books in my home, picking out a favourite novel – MM Kaye’s The Far Pavilion – breathing in the scent of the pages, feeling the weight of the book in my hands, flicking through and scanning the static, unchanging font that has been printed on those pages for so many years, I find myself thinking that the romance that this book conjures in my mind and heart when I read it is entwined with the physical object of the book itself.

The printed book has a romanticism all of its own, for its history. When you hold a book, you’re following in the footsteps of ancestors stretching far, far back – treasuring what society has long treasured. The object is satisfying – it appeals to the senses, it creates a mood: curling up in an armchair before a log fire with a Kindle just doesn’t feel the same as having a book nestled on your lap. It has a certain look that pleases – shelves and shelves of books are a comfort; like always having dear friends nearby. And there is an instant accessibility. When you want to reread an old favourite, you can pick it up easily and flick to your favourite scene whose page you’ve marked.

Finally, I think it is the permanency of the paper book that creates, for me, the more romantic experience. The book is fixed. The text is where it is for ever. The cover is there, in all its colour. The pages are real, tangible. In the ebook, in which nothing is permanent and text shifts, there is a chasm between you and the book that doesn’t not exist when the book is physically real. An intimacy, you may say, is lost.

What do you think? Do you find it more pleasurable to read a book on paper rather than on-screen? Do you connect more? Have more sense of romance? Do you prefer some kinds of book, such as erotic fiction, to others in the e-format? I’d love to hear your thoughts.