Is the book Dead?

[Shereen]

I am really interested to find out your views on how important to you think books are in our society nowadays? And more specifically art books. I have read a number of recent article that suggest the book is dead!
Do you think that our society is forgetting the importance of books? If so why do you think this?
Maybe it is because information is so easily available to us? I wonder how it is possible to salvage book?

 

[Sybarite]

Books are absolutely not dead.

The personal computer and the internet are massive and (relatively) new developments, but as various experiments in internet publishing have shown, nothing replaces the book.

After all, can you comfortable take a laptop into the loo to read? Or to bed? Or on the bus?

There are problems (I'm posting from a UK perspective here) about the lessening of diversity in bookshops, as a direct result of the removal of the book pricing agreements and also the dominance on the High Street of a limited number of chain stores, but books remain hudgely popular.

In terms of art books, they are the same as any other specialism – of course there is as much of a role for them in our society as in the past. As long as there are people with specialised interests, there will be books that serve those interests.

I occasionally buy art books – I quite regularly buy photography books, both technical and also art-based. I see no lessening in the availablility of such books.

 

[Anamnesis]

I can't ever see the book "dying". Maybe I'm just being too optimistic; I just feel like most people who read won't replace the regular book format with an e-book or some other electronic format.

 

[beer good]

What articles have you read?

The book won't die until someone comes up with a better format for carrying information. 540 years after Johann Gutenberg's death, I still don't see anything that's even remotely in competition. It's one of the most revolutionary technological innovations in human history; you don't just get rid of that. People said the same thing when the moving image was invented; yet somehow cinemas and DVDs haven't replaced bookshops.

Whether people are smart enough to read books (or write good ones) is another matter, of course.

 

[Sybarite]

... Whether people are smart enough to read books (or write good ones) is another matter, of course.

I think that this is a different issue, though. And one that, unless we're careful, can see us getting close to snobbery.

There's an awful lot of junk in bookshops – but is it better that people read junk or don't read at all?

Is it better that they pick up the latest 'autobiography' by some Z list 'celebrity' or that they never read?

In the UK, we apparently publish more books per head of population than anywhere else in the world. Now a lot of those are junk. But it at least means that people are buying, borrowing and reading books. That, surely, is a good thing?

 

[Landslide]

There's an awful lot of junk in bookshops – but is it better that people read junk or don't read at all?

I think that what's important is that people read, no matter what. I also think that reading is an acquired taste, so even if people start by reading junk, they will get the reading habit and naturally evolve to quality readings. Ok, maybe not not everyone...

Oh, and no, I don't think the book is dead, nor will it ever be... At least I hope not