Comparing the Sony Reader and Amazon’s Kindle in Q&Q‘s November issue, editor Derek Weiler wrote that complaints about the bathtub unworthiness of e-books are just one of “the shibboleths that e-book skeptics fall back on again and again when they argue that there’s no need or demand for electronic publishing.”

In the middle of his San Francisco Chronicle review of Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity, Brad DeLong helpfully demonstrates both sides of the e-book debate in action:

My one serious complaint is that [Panic!] is a book. That means that only one-tenth of the material comes from 2008 “ the last-written piece was first published on April 27. A lot has happened since then.

[…]

On the other hand, I can take the book into the bathtub “ so it still has one key edge, even though its production process sacrifices timeliness.

We swing back and forth on the e-book question ourselves, but it’s funny to think that, when it comes to books, the ability to be enjoyed with bubbles and warm water trumps up-to-date information on the worst economic crisis in a half-century.