Book Review: What We Talk About When We Talk About Books - The History and Future of Reading by Leah Price

Is reading a morally good pastime? Do eBooks rot the brain in the same way that pulp paperbacks do? Should people of feeble character be allowed unfettered access to books?

Show me how you want to read, and I’ll show you who you want to be.

Leah Price has produced a pithy and astonishing look at what books were and whether they will survive. It is, perhaps, a little overwrought and overwritten - but I revelled in the its joyous use of language.

Perhaps print is to digital as Madonna is to whore: we worship one but use the other.

It put forwards some provocative arguments and isn't afraid to show the counterpoint in its footnotes.

Same text, different books: the very same sequence of words means something different—does something different—depending on whether it’s made for a desk or a pocket, a classroom or a church. Comparing these two editions of the same text makes visible how much of our reaction to a book is shaped by factors other than the words it contains. Its look and feel and smell instruct us wordlessly in how and why to read it—alone or in company, in search of learning or of salvation.

How does DRM affect this, I wonder? If books are locked down then they cannot be analysed. Conversely, when every reader can choose their own font and hyphenation strategy, do we lose some collective experience?

Similarly, eReaders don't display their cover to fellow passengers on public transport. A boon for the privacy conscious, but means we lose the social signal that simply everyone is reading this new book.

Is reading for everyone?

Once a sign of economic power, reading has become the province of those whose time lacks value.

Harsh! The whole book is a powerful argument that books are a powerful argument. No matter what form the words are delivered in, some paranoid Moms will always want to see books from library shelves untimely ripp'd. There are, of course, an equal and opposite set of mothers who protest against cuts to literacy funding.

I sometimes wonder if any modern techbro CEOs have ever picked up a history book. Back in 1913, Thomas Edison was asked about the education powers of his new invention - the motion picture:

“Books,” declared the inventor with decision, “will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture. Our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years.

Books outlasted his prediction. They outlasted him. They will morph, adapt, scatter, and devour until they outlast us all.