I want books, physical books!

I’ve just watched a short documentary about the demise of a famous music store in New York, Bleeckers Bob. The half hour piece (or three minute BBC cut) describes the last weeks of a once ‘great’ record shop in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, and frankly it makes for depressing viewing. In its hay day this place was a Mecca for big music names, celebs and ‘cool kids’, set in an apparent vibrant and raw artistic area. Now the rent increase has forced the business to move, or close its doors forever (the documentary doesn’t say which it will do).  The fate of Bleecker Bob is not a unique one. The declining interest in physical music formats, coupled with their expense and the inconvenience involved in procuring them, has steadily helped to make record stores amongst those marked for high street - and in this case back street - extinction. It’s sad, but in the case of music it’s not hard to see why and how it has happened. Music is an evolving art, and as such it’s always likely that the method and medium in which it is distributed will change along with its artistic content. In my own, relatively short life I have witnessed the death of cassette tapes, the birth and death of MiniDisc (remember those!), and the longevity of CDs. All of which will become superfluous because of a multitude of technologies that, whilst lacking in physical presence, are all much more convenient.  It’s not just the small guys who are feeling this shift in consumer trends. Chains like the once mighty HMV disbanded their US operation in 2004 and Virgin Mega stores(one of Mr Branson original enterprises) closed down in 2009. If I was a gambling man, I would not put money on resurgence and I don’t feel I would be going too far to say in the next decade these brands will be as alive as Woolworths. Depending on which source you trust or read (http://gizmdo.com/5873471/digital-music-sales-beat-physical-music-sales-for-the-first-time , http://mashable.com/2012/07/24/music-sales-decline/), download sales have now overtaken those of CDs. One thing that no source will dispute is that number of downloads are increasing and physical format sales are recoiling.  Now, I don’t really want to talk about records, tapes or CDs. I actually wanted to talk about books and bookshops. However, the above documentary was what first sparked my thought pattern and I feel the synergy between music and literature is very relevant. 

In the past few years the rise of the Kindle has indeed made the availability of books much easier. The device has the ability to store hundreds of books and is roughly half the thickness and twice as light as a standard book. iPad’s, tablet PCs and smart phones all have similar capabilities and the amount of people with one or more of these devices is soaring. I’m fairly confident that within my lifetime (providing I live to an average life expectancy) books will be an item confined to eccentrics and collectors.  Does this annoy me? Hell yes.

Logically speaking there is no reason whatsoever that I can think of why the replacement of books by cold lumps of electronic plastic should bother me quite as much as it does. Kindles and eReaders are nice looking, light, convenient and they are great space savers. They are cheaper (once the initial model has been purchased) and probably more durable than real books.

So, what could I possibly have against electronic books? As it happens rather a lot actually. There is no feeling to an electronic device such as the Kindle. You cannot turn the pages of a Kindle. You can’t roll it into you jacket pocket (granted they are so small you probably will never need to) and there will never be any indication of how loved a book has been by the way a Kindle looks. I have many dog-eared books in by bookcase. This annoys some people, but to me personally, I take this as a good sign, the books been read, it’s been handled. A Kindle may look worn, but this is more of an indicator of how its owner treats it and bears no insight into the number of times the contents of the Kindle have been read or how feverishly the pages have been scrolled.

Next there is the smell. Spoken like a true nerd, books do smell. I like that smell. Well mostly I do. I went on a picnic on Sunday and a copy of the book I was carrying is now soaked in tzatziki, so that may be on the tangy side of the smell spectrum, but no doubt you get the picture.

There are also the social ramifications associated with departing from physical books to eBooks. Take the library for instance; do you really think they will exist if all books are electronic? ‘It’s doubtful’ is the most positive response I can give. Is that a loss? I think so, yes. Bookshops will close, that much is a certainty. Commerce dictates that they will, but what does that really mean? It means no more browsing. It means you’ll have to go online and buy your books, but how will you know which books to buy without being able to finger the first few pages of the current best sellers? Easy, the Internet will tell you based on your most recent choices. What a nice, convenient, surefire way not to experience anything new. Libraries and bookshops will not be alone; don’t forget bookbinders and printers who also stand to lose out.

The rise of the eBook has given rise to another trend, one that I must mention but do so cautiously: self-publication. I want to prefix the next few sentences by first saying that there is absolutely no reason why people should not self publish. It’s a great way to reach a lot of people and ultimately there are very few financial overheads. It would be somewhat hypocritical of me to say anything else given the format of this blog. However, what I do have an issue with is the quality assurance aspect of self-publishing. If we go back to the music industry once again for example, there are instances where people have produced and recorded their own record and made a success, David Gray being a high profile example. However, type into YouTube the name of one of your favourite songs and you’ll be sure to get ‘Joe Blog’s Cover of...’ by the dozen-load. The problem then becomes that the artist you are looking for of arguably greater talent (and I did say arguably) becomes lost in a wave of mediocrity. The same has and will continue to happen with self-publishing; people who would otherwise struggle or be unable to publish a book through traditional channels, for a multitude of reasons, can quite easily publish electronically. This in theory will dilute the overall quality of the books read and written and as such, at least for me, will encourage me to read less. I know there are many counter agreements for the use of self-publishing and to discuss the subject in detail would require a blog of its own. However these points are in at least some way valid, at least in principle and as such strengthen my own opinion of the physical medium.

Lastly and on a more practical note I want books because they look good. If the unthinkable does happen and books become a past time, what the hell am I going to fill the corner of living room with? Unlike a good friend of mine who has recently moved in with his girlfriend, I’m not up for putting scented candles, pictures of loved ones and fake Egyptian artefacts in my bookcase! I want books. Physical books.