The current state of book culture

A long form essay in The Econ­o­mist, for Oct 11th, 2014, titled From Papyrus to Pix­els, is an excel­lent sur­vey of the cur­rent state of book cul­ture. It smart­ly traces the evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy of the book, from Roman times up to the present, point­ing out that the book indeed has had an evolv­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Dig­i­tal books are sim­ply the lat­est devel­op­ment in a two thou­sand year progression.

The arti­cle is not about the evo­lu­tion of book content—a whole oth­er subject—but how books have been writ­ten, made, sold and read. Cit­ed are indi­ca­tions that the e‑book has already reached its sat­u­ra­tion point, and that the print­ed book—which has also evolved technologically—holds its own. That said, e‑books have had the great­est impact on book­stores, which rad­i­cal­ly declined in num­bers. Then, too, dig­i­tal books have meant the return—note the word, return—of the self-pub­lished book.

For those involved—as I am—in the children’s book world—there is some inter­est­ing com­men­tary, too.

Last­ly, one may read this arti­cle, as I did, in the mag­a­zine. Alter­na­tive­ly, one can go online (as I also did) and read the arti­cle there again. The pre­sen­ta­tion of the arti­cle in dig­i­tal form is humor­ous in its own right—as you will see when you look at it.

All in all, it is worth read­ing because, for those who love books, it is an opti­mistic report.