TEXT G

　　First read the following question.
　　33. What is the main theme of the following passage?
　　A.Strengths of paper books over E-books.
　　B.Projected extinction of paper books.
　　C.Market prospects of E-books.
　　D.The history of paper books.

　　Now go through TEXT G quickly and answer the question.
　　Experts predict that the printed paper and glue book will be rendered obsolete by electronic text delivery systems, of which one, the Microsoft Reader, is already on the market, offering "book" on a pocket PC manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. This is not impossible; already much of the written communication that used to be handled by letters, newspapers and magazines has shifted to computer screens and to the vast digital library available over the Internet. If the worst comes true and the paper book joins the papyrus scroll and parchment codex in extinction, we will miss, I predict, a number of things about it.
　　The book as furniture. Shelved rows of books warm and brighten the starkest room. By bedside and easy chair, books promise a cozy, swift and silent release from this world into another. For ease of access and speed of storage, books are tough to beat.
　　The book as sensual pleasure. Smaller than a breadbox, bigger than a TV remote, the average book fits into the human hand with a seductive nestling, a kiss of texture, whether of cover cloth, glazed jacket or flexible paperback. The weight can rest on the little finger of the right hand for hours without strain, while the thumb holds the pages open and the fingers of the other hand turn them.
　　The rectangular block of type, a product of five and a half centuries of printers lore, yields to decipherment so gently that one is scarcely aware of the difference between immersing oneself in an imaginary world and scanning the furniture of one's own room.
　　The book as souvenir. One's collection comes to symbolize the contents of one s mind. Books read in childhood, in yearning adolescence, at college and in the first self-conscious years of adulthood travel along, often, with readers as they move from house to house. My mother's college texts sat untouched in a corner of our country bookcase.
　　The bulk of my own college books are still with me, rarely consulted but always there, reminders of moments, of stages, in a pilgrimage. The decades since add their own drifts and strata of volumes read or half read or intended to be read. Books preserve, daintily, the redolence of their first reading-this beach, that apartment, that summer afternoon, this flight to Indonesia.
　　Books as ballast. As movers and the moved both know, books are heavy freight, the weight of refrigerators and sofas broken up into cardboard boxes. They make us think twice about changing addresses. How many aging couples have decided to stay put because they can t imagine what to do with the books? How many divorces have been forestalled by love of the jointly acquired library?
　　Books hold our beams down. They act as counterweight to our fickle and flighty natures. In comparison, any electronic text delivery device would lack substance. Further, speaking of obsolescence, it would be outdated in a year and within 15 years as inoperable as my formerly treasured Wang word processor from the mid-80's. Electronic equals immaterial. Without books, we might melt into the airwaves, and be just another set of blips.