The welcome acquisition of Waterstone's came just a few days before the launch of two new e-book readers in the US and Book Expo America, where digital talk was front and centre. For me it was an unfortunate juxtaposition.

While the British bookshop chain's putative new owner Alexander Mamut was talking about an "undiluted commitment to books and bookselling", Barnes & Noble was planning its Apple-style press conference to launch its all-new Nook, and Amazon was making headlines for employing the publishing big-hitter Larry Kirshbaum. E-book only bookseller Kobo also announced a new digital reader, with its chief executive Michael Serbinis telling the FT: "We stand for reading in an age of 200m Angry Birds downloads."

There is absolutely no contradiction between loving reading and loving the way books used to be sold. Just as there should be no contradiction between loving reading and loving the new ways e-books can be sold.

The worry is that while Mamut, and Waterstone's new managing director James Daunt, also stand for reading, they want it to be a book-based activity, happening in real bookshops. As one of the few press statements put out by Mamut stated: "I am firmly of the view that there will be an enduring demand for physical bookshops, which are cultural centres within local communities, and that there is now an opportunity to renew Waterstone’s focus on providing a distinctive, high-quality bookselling service which will underpin that.” Or as Daunt told the Guardian: "All of us want to walk into a bookshop that lifts our spirits."

The problem is that the numbers who walk into bookshops and buy books is falling; while the numbers who buy and crucially read books digitally is rising.  As digital thinker Mike Shatzkin wrote in a recent blog: "Five years ago we lived in a world where every book that mattered sold more copies at brick stores than it did online. Five years from now every book that matters will sell more copies online than it does in a brick store."

Or as Joe Sinyor, former m.d. of the book chain Dillons, told The Bookseller this week: "This is the world of Kindles and iPads—they get their content by different means. Waterstone’s begins to look a bit like a dinosaur. Anyone who buys it is doing it for love, not for profit."

Sinyor's point is troubling, even though it has been denied by Daunt, who says the chain will not be run like Abramovich's Chelsea FC. As Barnes & Noble's transition to e-bookseller has showed, developing a viable and valid e-book offer is not cheap. But I don't think there is an alternative, unless the plan is to run a legacy business based on a platform that is slowly running out of steam: a defiant shop window for books that people used to want to put on their shelves.

Oddly enough, the people I know at Waterstone's don't seem like the types willing to ride shotgun in a car that is running out of gas. Two weeks ago e-book buyer Alex Ingram told an e-book conference that he hoped a post HMV Waterstone's would see its digital plan emerge more quickly and with greater vigour.

Its former head of e-commerce David Kohn told The Bookseller this week: "I think they have to imitate the Barnes & Noble model for e-books. They have to create a really strong e-book proposition in-store, and dedicate more space to it. They must create the functionality so that you can download any book in-store. It’s almost inevitable that they’ll have to partner with one of the bigger players—a Barnes & Noble with its Nook or Kobo. They have to take more ownership of the device, whether it’s their own or someone else’s, and they have to create an in-store environment that strongly supports e-books. E-books are critical for the future and Waterstone’s has to establish itself as a leading brand in this area."

What I find most perplexing is the view often expressed over the past week that Waterstone's troubles are now somehow behind it. That an "undiluted commitment to books and bookselling" and a new parent will somehow stop a trend developing that is already established. Independent Alma Books m.d. Alessandro Gallenzi told The Bookseller magazine this week: “What is needed is a strong message that high street bookselling is not dead. James Daunt is the best person to do this." Or as Patrick Neale, co-owner and former manager of Watersone’s Glasgow, Sauchiehall Street, said: "It’s essential that Waterstone’s thrives: anything that accelerates the arrival of e-books is going to be bad for all of us."

There is surely no-one involved in the book business that does not love physical books and bookshops. There is a magic to this business that could make a book buyer pay more for a physical book stocked at Daunts than a Kindle version, or even an Amazon-powered rendition. But there is not enough of this magic in the whole world to sustain a 300 store national book chain operating in a market where upwards of 10% of what used to be physical sales have disappeared online. This is not a competitive assault led by a niggly rival, it is a change in habit - the reading habit.

There is, however, enough magic to re-imagine an unfettered and confident Waterstone's moving aggressively into the new places where people are reading and using its formidable brand to make an "undiluted commitment to books and bookselling" digitally. People forget now but when it introduced the Sony Reader into its stores in 2008 it was ahead of the curve: in retrospect it appears to have backed the wrong horse, but it is not too late to switch saddles.

Waterstone's needs to be spoken of in the same breath as Kindle, Nook and Kobo, or it will have undermined its heritage.