There are companies that will do such waterproofing for most electronic portable devices, but this one comes ready-sealed, albeit at a notable premium. With the ability to take it almost anywhere, in the bath, rain and sea (which would not be a good idea with most paper books), combined with the built-in goodies like an 8 week battery life, being able to read it at night as well as bright sunlight, to carry a whole library in something smaller and lighter than a paperback novel, to adjust font sizes to suit your eyes, to search the whole text, to non-destructively annotate, etc, to purchase a book for reading almost instantly, all at lower prices (financial and environmental) than traditional paper books, this makes e-books an even more compelling proposition. That said, and although I have very many Kindle books, I'm not crazy about the Amazon ecosystem: the ability to read and sync books and notes on multiple devices is great, but the heavy-handed DRM and the fact that you never get to actually own the books you buy (inasmuch as Amazon can take them from you, as they have done from time to time, though thankfully not from me yet) is a major issue. Apart from that, what's not to love?