THIS week, I have been perturbed by the arrival of my (belated) birthday gift from my brother.

My only sibling has secured his first ‘proper’ job as a pharmacist for a big company. So, at the grand old age of 25, he has finally purchased his big sister her first pressie.

It’s a very gener ous present, but I am in two minds because it’s a Kindle – Amazon’s technological ‘book’ which aims to take over the world in a few years by having every book ever published available to be downloaded onto it at the click of the button.

It has also given rise to the ‘eBook’, a novel written to be published (sometimes by its author) directly online.

My Kindle is a slim and elegant bit of kit, the sleep mode of which produces a new screensaver every time, usually a hero or heroine of the book world.

Pretty it definitely is. And the screen is quite amazing, causing you to reach out your hand to touch the text because it looks so much like printed copy.

In the initial enthusiasm, I downloaded a few free key classics – Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol –and felt all ‘with it’. And to top it all, I discovered that I can even buy a Cath Kidston cover for it.

So why am I unsettled? The thing is, despite my job requiring that I spend most of my working day in front of a computer, I am a complete Luddite.

Books have been the great love affair of my life. Many a time, my husband has actually attempted to lay his head on a page I’m absorbed in to try to break me out of my reading reverie. He once asked which I’d opt for if forced to choose between him and books, and let’s just say he was disappointed by my answer.

As much as I am impressed by my Kindle, I doubt we will ever fall in love in the way I’m involved with my favourite tomes and their individual aesthetic, their cover – perhaps the cover that’s from the era in which I first read them – their rips, their smell (especially if new) and yes, even their stains.

Every time I look at my historic copy of Roald Dahl’s Matilda I can still remember the car journey when my nose bled on to page 12.

Yes, the Kindle will create an easily transportable virtual bookcase, but when I’m reading, I want to feel in my hands what I’m digesting.

My books are uniquely important and I want to be able to bend their spines, use my collection of bookmarks and savour their delicious physicality for ever.

Long live the normal book!