Historically, only a small proportion of books were published in Braille. But now, technology mean that a book is out of range

The book not only as a source of knowledge or entertainment, but as something inherently enjoyable, is a familiar theme. In fact, he came again in the pages of this newspaper, letters earlier this week. The point of this last tirade against the rise of the ebook is that physical books leave an imprint, can be transmitted, to improve a room, revived (no pun intended) a memory. Yet for most of my life indiscriminately voracious reader and book even though I am, the printed book was more of a joke: a will-o'-the-wisp the conclusion of what might, if possible only for a tear when I get it.

Evil comes in my power to it at all. I was born blind, and reading for me has always meant in Braille. I had the pleasure and enjoyment of books, but this is the only time I have not been able to fulfill my rule never to regret what could not have. With only a small proportion of books published in Braille - less than 1% - the world's literature is not provided you and hanging in front of you. To be fair, the classics were there - the shipwrecked Desert Island Discs, who was Shakespeare and the Bible, the latter an extension of over one hundred volumes, because most Braille books - but not that children want to read . To illustrate, a Braille library at my school for the blind had a Famous Five book, Billy Bunter, who was just Bill and, as I grew older, a Bond and James PG Wodehouse.

was a subtle form of torture: enough to hope, no opportunity to do something that readers devour all the guns from beginning to end in an orgy of excess. And that's where my love-hate relationship with the printed book and the library began. I remember with my mother, running my fingers along the shelves, leaving the edges of the pages slip through my fingers. It was, perhaps, five go bungee jumping, or William and the Outlaws Learn to Rap? Has been better since I am an adult, but instead of Blyton, Frank Richards and Crompton, I was obsessed with the latest Sebastian Faulks, bonkbuster bad taste or a political biography. I wish all sense of the book-lover-the smell of paper, the crack of the satisfaction of the opening of a new book, nicely rounded feel of the spine, with none of the satisfaction of reading

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I guess at this point it would be best to avoid the flood of suggestions from wellwishers puzzled, wondering what I have not heard of the book. I, of course, very good some of them are - but not reading, no? However, there is good news. This column should not be a sustained whinge. There is no happy ending.

'very happy with my partner-in-chief, a bookish child who throughout the years, have read books and patiently explained to me, and now are trying to decide whether the role of CT and the scan head is more or less difficult. In the last two weeks, anarchy is messy delicious hand bookshops, I managed to pick up everything from a cultural study of the Weimar Republic a treaty on the net, through the biographies and disconnected, as Marie Antoinette and Kim Philby, Rudyard Kipling and Jimmy Hoffa, try those whose names have captured my imagination in the examinations, as Alison Lurie and Marian Keyes, and random decisions on what I read, rather than decisions taken by me at the will also randomly committee that decides what is put in Braille. Suddenly, I can follow the pulse as a search engine for Cynthia Asquith ghost stories, or a decent account of South Africans in England in 1955, the first cricket test series may vaguely recall below.

not perfect yet. Scanning books page of the site is tedious, changes in the type and size print can often produce results equally varied, requiring skillful editing to make it readable, and updates every time someone changes or a system operating software, they are back at the starting point. With books that are produced by electronic means as a matter of course, publishers, authors and agents could be much more useful. Certainly one way to do digital versions of books available to blind people are willing to pay for them, or borrow them in particular circumstances, could be designed without the closure of the publishing industry in an explosion of piracy?

While we wait for publishers and organizations for the blind to get your fingers, we, the blind readers to take matters into their own hands, via digitized books in the silence between us and the children with drugs in the corners. But hey! For some of us are fortunate to have the equipment, money and support, things are much better today. Now I'm the one who is able to take the books as many holidays as I like, all these little cards, while my wife must be limited to three or four paperbacks. The days of war and peace in 21 volumes in Braille, slip disc postman stumbles along the way, is nearing completion.