Please Turn Off Your Book

I had just been to a con­fer­ence in Cal­gary, Cana­da, a con­fer­ence set up by and for librar­i­ans. I met authors and illus­tra­tors I’d not known before. Great talk (in Eng­lish and French) about books, writ­ing, and most of all read­ing. I had a ter­rif­ic time. But as I was fly­ing home, and just about to land, I heard a flight atten­dant say to the per­son seat­ed behind me, “Please turn off your book.” 

I was star­tled, though I had no rea­son to be. If there is any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for hav­ing an e‑book read­er, it’s on air­planes with their ghast­ly cramped seats. Haul­ing around a Har­ry Pot­ter vol­ume, or War and Peace jus­ti­fies a light, slim e‑reader. Indeed, I had one with me and was using it for just that reason. 

But after being at a con­fer­ence and see­ing the beau­ti­ful pic­ture books by Marie-Louise Gay, and enjoy­ing the work of Richard Scrimger, I felt bad for young peo­ple who might only have e‑books. It’s use­ful to recall that after Guten­berg brought the print­ing press to Europe, print­ed books were called “imi­ta­tion books,” because they were not hand-craft­ed. So it goes: Stone, clay, papyrus, wax tablets, scrolls, codex, and the print­ed book. Over time texts have changed their form.

Still, the e‑book is (for me) only about the ease of read­ing in odd places. The e (elec­tric­i­ty) lies not the deliv­ery sys­tem, but in the writing.