Anyone else see this in yesterday's Observer? To summarise, if you can't be bothered to read it: the book is dead. Long live the handheld electronic book-downloading super-gizmo.
Obviously, this is just the kind of story people who have just invested huge amounts of time and money into new bookshops love to read. (Adam and Matthew look away now. I can carry on because I just work there.) The general idea is that within seven to ten years, we'll all have lovely paper-like mini-computers with something called E-Ink which will make the display look just like the printed page, and we will be able to download thousands and thousands of books onto the same device, cross-reference them, do all kinds of sexy things with them no doubt (possibly literally - anyone else heard about that vibrator you plug into your i-pod which pulsates in time with the music? No? OK, moving on.) And then get really, really, really pissed off with ourselves when we leave them on the train.
Now, I am an enthusiastic music downloader and can see the superficial attraction of this device, and I am sure that people predicted the downfall of human civilisation when they invented the telephone (maybe they had a point, who knows) but I do have some objections - some? Many. OK innumerable, but let's get going on just a few.
Can you pass books on? Can you share them? Or does everyone have to download their own? What about libraries? Will they just download books onto your device that erase themselves after three weeks?
How much will it cost? The device? The downloads? How often will we have to upgrade to new versions as the old ones become obselete and can't keep up with changes in software, which also means if you want to read old books again you have to download a new version to read on your new widget? Exactly how much money are they going to spin out of us?
How long will the battery power last? If you want to read for more than a couple of hours at a time, will the book just switch itself off?
What about third world countries where electricity is poorly distributed and sporadic?
What will we keep on our bookshelves? May sound like a stupid question, but I feel a room looks naked without a few shelves of books. And no, DVDs do not count.
Will they have adverts? Please god no.
How will you know what you want to read? This is my principal objection. It is very easy to browse for music online. You can listen to snippets of songs, you can download free samples, and anyway chances are the music you are shopping for is stuff you've already heard, in the radio, in a club, at a mate's. Books are different. OK, there's a percentage of them that sell just through hype, or author reputation, or reviews, or massive great advertising campaigns on the tube (note to the wise: those books are usually not very good), or because you wake up one morning and realise you can't justify living another day without at least having attempted to read some Henry James. But a lot of the time you don't really know what you want to read next, so you go into bookshops, you chat to booksellers (or rant at them incoherantly for what seems like hours, though obviously not in this shop, that's other places I've worked), you look at covers, you pick things up, you check out blurb, you scan the shelves to jog your memory about books you've heard of and you look inside them and have a little read. Everyone does this differently. They look at the beginning. The end (this does mark you out as some kind of freak.) A bit in the middle. Someone I know always turns to page 70. Any number of books are sold this way, as booksellers and publishers know, otherwise why would there be so much controversy about which books make it onto display tables (some shops take payment for this - we do not.) If you are a new, unknown author without a massive publisher behind you, this is the only way you're going to sell anything at all.
OK, so these are familiar arguments which have already been rehearsed as regards internet retailing. But at least at the moment you have a choice - you can buy the books you know you already want online (possibly even from us, hint hint) and go into shops when you're feeling more indecisive or in need of bookish conversation. But a 100pc download world seems so bleak and solitary, never venturing away from your own personal screen, never being surprised by anything new.
But maybe I shouldn't be so doom and gloom. Perhaps there are ways around it. Maybe what we'll see is the rise of the display bookshop - one hard copy of each book for browsing purposes only, and then when you've made your choice, you plug yourself in at the counter and download a virtual copy. It would certainly save us a lot of time unpacking and shelving. In fact now I think of it, this could be the best thing that ever happened to bookselling, and particularly to my back, which doesn't like carrying all those heavy boxes. Hurrah for the fake electronic book-like thingy! Down with paper!
I think I need a bit of a lie down.
You can also follow this debate on Rullsenberg Rules.
