Book review: The Case For Books

Published on Saturday 14 November 2009 12:42

THE CASE FOR BOOKS BY ROBERT DARNTON Public Affairs, 256pp, £13.99 Review by ZOE COUTTS

IT IS 2050. Bookshops are extinct, libraries are a severely endangered species and the only place you're likely to see a book is behind glass in a museum display along with the typewriter and the gramophone.

Even if the book's future turns out not to be so apocalyptic, its dominance is coming to an end. With Google and Amazon poised to take centre stage, the age of digitisation is nigh.

So should we welcome Google's efforts to amalgamate as many libraries as it can under its digital roof? Or should we lament the pretty much inevitable eclipse of the book? In this in-depth collection of essays, Darnton embraces this debate and explores the book from its birth in 200AD to its imminent demise.

The message Darnton puts across is that revolution is upon us, whether we like it or not. With or without publishers' approval, Google has been busy scanning millions of books, with the ultimate aim in sight of a "democratic digital future" in which information and ideas could spread to the far corners of the internet-accessing world.

E-books will probably change the way in which we read, possibly dissipating the single focus of our attention. Their structure, says Darnton, is like a pyramid in which only the topmost layer is the original text. If a reader comes across an interesting word or phrase they continue down the layers exploring supplementary information. With an e-book you are not just reading one book. You are reading several at the same time.

Darnton also argues that some of the reasons we prefer "real" books will start to grow less persuasive. Right now that may seem hard to credit. Books are aesthetically pleasing. A computer is not. They even have an alluring and individual smell: half of all French students asked said that they considered this to be of high importance in their overall enjoyment of a book. People grow easily attached to books. No-one ever heard of being sentimental about a computer program.

But e-books are green. That is an argument which is not apparent in Darnton's book and should be. There will be less transport required to shift e-books in bulk and, of course, printing and publishing costs are non-existent. This is a terrific selling point.

Darnton's book ticks all the boxes. It looks nice. It smells nice. Its content is intelligent and forms a valuable primer to an increasingly important debate.

In that debate, Darnton has all bases covered – his book is also published electronically.