Could e-readers spell the end for books?

As e-reader ownership soars, Hannah Stephenson and Cathy Gordon examine the device’s pros and cons

Less than two years after they were launched, it’s estimated that more than 807 million people worldwide own some sort of e-reader — and many will be downloading a stack of titles to take with them on holiday.

The boom has allowed previously unknown authors to make it big, as has been proved by the phenomenal success of the Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy by EL James, who used the self-publishing arm of Kindle to become the first person to sell more than one million e-books.