One thing that travelling by bus offers is time to think, particularly if, like me, you feel distinctly ill if you try to read. Yesterday saw me spending time in two lovely independent bookstores in New York: one was Otto Penzler’s gracious Mysterious Bookshop, where we commenced this little mystery jaunt. The other was Books of Wonder, the specialist children’s bookshop on 18th Street, where I browsed, had coffee, and watched kids read, which rather gladdened my heart. If there is anything more uplifting to the spirit of a reader and writer than being in a room surrounded by books, it is being in a room surrounded by books that children are enjoying.
My heart, it must be said, was in need of some gladdening. Many of you will be aware of the US Justice Department’s lawsuit against five US publishers, essentially accusing them of collusion in setting prices for e-books. The ins and outs of the case aren’t really at issue here, but what troubled me was a comment from an interested party who suggested, not particularly sorrowfully, that the whole affair would be “bad news for bookbinderies.”
Bad news for a lot of people, one fears. Bad news for independent bookstores. Bad news for publishers. Bad news for writers. And, ultimately, bad news for readers, even if, initially, a few dollars may be knocked off the price of e-books. Again, all that remains to be seen. (This is not an anti-Amazon screed, incidentally: I use Amazon as a customer and, as a writer, I benefit from Amazon sales. I suppose, echoing Jack Nicholson, I’m just asking why we can’t all just get along…)
It just seems to me that an element of gloating over the perceived demise of printed books has crept into the discourse over e-books. A year or so ago, a mystery writer was pictured on the front of a magazine warming himself beside a brazier of burning books while sipping a cocktail. The writer in question – for whom, quite frankly, I never had a great deal of time, and that picture just confirmed that my first instincts had been correct – has become something of a proselytizer for e-books, and the magazine cover image, which he apparently suggested, was his way of communicating his message that the printed word was on the way out, and long live the age of the electronic book.
I can think of few more depressing sights in recent years that a writer glorying in the burning of books. Even the Nazis had the decency to make the casting of books on to the pyre look like a bit of a chore. He joins the sorry legion of folk who use terms like “dead tree publishing” and “legacy publishing” to describe the beauty of a book, thereby dismissing everything from the Gutenberg Bible to that beloved, battered paperback that you’ve kept since your childhood, and which would be among the first things you’d try to save if your house was on fire. It’s ignorance on a bewildering scale, and makes one feel that, for a brief instant, you’ve come in touch with the spirit of those chaps who burned the library at Alexandria.
Just to be clear on this: I have no particular problem with e-books. If that’s how you want to read, then fine. Go for it. As long as they’re sold for a fair price, one that represents some reasonable reflection of the effort that went into producing it on the part of the writer and the publisher, then there’s no reason why e-books should not simply be another way to enjoy reading. It should be understood by all, though, that books and e-books are not the same. They can and should co-exist, but there are those – shamefully, writers among them - who would prefer to see the e-book triumph and its perceived competition vanish entirely: first the bookstores, and then the books themselves.
But I don’t want to see bookstores disappear, and not simply because physical bookstores happen to be my preferred way of buying books. I grew up in a house where there were books. Some of them belonged to my grandparents, with whom we shared a house. Some were my mother’s, as my father didn’t read much aside from newspapers. A great many, as the years went on, were mine. I bought them new when I could afford them, or used when money was scarce. Often there would be library books alongside them because, even when I had little money, our local library at Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin offered me the choice of more books than I could ever read in a lifetime.
In other words, I grew up surrounded by books. I saw them before I could read them. I understood that these objects were part of our life as a family. I was curious about them and what they represented. I can still recall my first, faltering steps towards becoming a reader, and the sense that, for this effort, I would be rewarded with an expansion of my consciousness, a new way of experiencing the world, a new way of being.
I suppose I’m wondering now if the metal-and-plastic tablet devices that are set to become so much a part of our lives will offer the same experience. They are not dedicated objects in the way that a book is. A book has one main purpose, which is to be read: an e-reader, outside of the most basic of models, has many. If it’s equipped with internet access then it brings with it, along with certain benefits, the singular curse of that access, which is distraction. The internet is a distraction engine. It encourages us to flick, to scan, to read widely but not deeply. The book function on an iPad or iPhone is, in a way, the antithesis of the other roles for which such devices are equipped. A book’s requirements of patience and immersion from the reader sit uneasily beside Twitter, and Facebook updates, and Google, and the ubiquitous hyperlink.
More to the point, what will the home libraries of the future look like? I suspect this is the last generation that will see significant household libraries of books accumulated on casual basis – by which I mean libraries that have not been gathered as part of a formal collection, or with the potential future financial value of the books in mind - with cluttered shelves mixed with hardbacks and paperbacks. The paperback will soon disappear. The hardback will remain, but will be the preserve of collectors and hardcore fans of particular authors. Ultimately, will there be homes where a library is represented only by a tablet device? Is that really a library at all? If there are households where books, if they exist at all, are essentially virtual and not actual, then how will this impact upon children as they grow up, for surely children’s tastes are formed by their environment? Will the idea of being surrounded by books, whether in childhood or adulthood, ultimately become obsolete?
If that happens, there will be few stores, if any, like Books of Wonder or Mysterious left, or indeed any of the independents or chain stores that this bus tour will visit over the coming week (for now, with Borders gone, Barnes & Noble has come to seem ever more valuable, with its miles of books, and its still astounding range). We will have fewer books around us. The gloaters will have won, but theirs will be a hollow victory, and the world will be a poorer place in which to live.
But maybe I’m wrong. I’m open to being corrected.
I’m just thinking.
That’s what I do on a bus…
Friday, April 13, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
ON UNREAD BOOKS AND GROWING OLD
The bookshelf in my bedroom has been intimidating me for long enough, so I’ve decided that it’s time to do something about it.
Here’s the thing: the bedroom bookshelf seems to be the place to which new books gravitate, specifically the ones that I’ve bought for myself with the full and certain intention of reading them in the near future, if not immediately. Unfortunately, like most readers, I’m also something of a compulsive book buyer, and so I inevitably end up buying books at a faster pace than I can read them.
The bedroom bookshelf is now full, and I’ve started doubling up on books, which can only mean that the obscured books are destined to be forgotten unless I introduce some form of rotation system, which smacks both of obsessive-compulsive behaviour and the final, desperate days of Rafael Benitez at Liverpool football club.
The bedroom bookshelf problem is compounded by the fact that there are also bookshelves in the hall, the dining room, outside the living room (three), in the guest bedroom (two, both doubled up to the max), and in my office, which is where the advance copies of books sent to me by authors and publishers tend to end up on the grounds that I’m less likely to forget about them if they’re in front of me every day.
Unfortunately, this approach has backfired because of the associations of the bedroom bookshelf with books that are to be read soonest. It would make more sense to put the advance copies on the bedroom bookshelf so that they, too, become sprinkled with immediacy dust, but then where would I put the books that I’ve bought for myself? They can’t go in the hall, the dining room, or outside the living room because those shelves are full. Even if I could put them in the guest bedroom I wouldn’t because, with the best will in the world, those poor books are NEVER going to be read. The guest bedroom is a literary gulag. It is where unread books go to die.
No, the current system, imperfect though it may be, has to continue, but the least I can do is attempt to make some serious inroads into the books in the bedroom. So, for the past month, I’ve been knocking books out of the park, so to speak, as far as the bedroom is concerned, alternating fiction and non-fiction, aided by the fact that I didn’t buy any books at all in January, since nothing came out that I wanted to read. (Actually, I tell a lie: I did, but I left them in another country so they don’t count.)
You know, there is a great satisfaction in reading rapidly, and with serious intent, and clearing one’s shelves along the way. I long ago got over any sentimentality about holding on to books. Unless they’re signed, or have some kind of association with someone I know and like, they go in the charity box once they’re read. I make exceptions for the occasional non-fiction book, and music books that might prove useful for my radio show. Otherwise, once I finish the last page, it’s bye-bye book.
(And, no, I don’t want to hear about how an e-reader might be useful in my case because a) I don’t like using them; b) I prefer reading printed books; and c) you don’t own an e-book (you’re just licensed to access its content), and I like owning books, whatever I may ultimately decide to do with them. End of lesson.)
Anyway, yesterday I finished Len Deighton’s SS-GB, a book recommended to me by my good friend Steve Stilwell, a gentleman with whom I may disagree on many things – generally because he’s wrong and I’m right - but with whom I agree on most. The great thing about SS-GB was that it was a fast read: I began it on Sunday night, and read the last page in bed on Monday night. My previous book – Peter Bart’s INFAMOUS PLAYERS – took me two days, but that was because I was distracted by the weekend’s newspapers. The book before that, which was John Sandford’s BURIED PREY, also took two days, although it shouldn’t really have because I was tearing through the pages. That’s three books in less than a week and, on top of what I’ve already read this month (including TREASURE ISLAND, which I’d somehow neglected to read until now, and A FEAST OF CROW by George RR Martin, which took a while because it’s 1000 pages long, give or take), represents a considerable inroad into the bedroom bookshelf stockpile.
One thing I have noticed, though, is my reluctance to read books that are very thick, or that might take me an unduly long time to get through. A FEAST FOR CROWS represented nearly a week’s reading, and that’s simply not good enough if I’m going to clear some space on the shelf. It’s one of the reasons why I haven’t yet managed to pick up Stephen King’s latest, 11/22/63, as that’s quite a chunk of book change and I don’t want to mess with my momentum. On the other hand, reading 11/22/63 would leave a decent sized hole on the shelf, but it would still only be one book. Then again, TREASURE ISLAND, though dense, was comparatively short, and while I felt a sense of satisfaction in adding another book to the ‘completed’ pile – and a classic, no less – its absence from the shelf didn’t free up much room.
Oh well: I never claimed this was a perfect science, and in my darker moments I acknowledge that I am engaged in a Sisyphean labour. There are still more books in the house than I’m ever going to read, and there are new books on the horizon. As February dawned, books started appearing that I might want to add to the bedroom bookshelf, and last week, in a moment of weakness, I ordered one of them. It was Marcus Berkmann’s A SHED OF ONE’S OWN, which deals with the trials of male middle age and therefore seems somehow appropriate in the context of my current obsession with de-cluttering my bookshelves. Perhaps it’s just one facet of a larger desire to simplify my life as I get older. Having too many unread books on one’s shelves, too many unlistened to records, too many unwatched films, starts to rankle, and becomes an uncomfortable reminder of one’s own imminent mortality. I have to read these books! I’m going to die one day! Maybe soon!
Time to go. I have books to read…
This week John read
SS-GB by LEN DEIGHTON
INFAMOUS PLAYERS by PETER BART
BURIED PREY by JOHN SANDFORD
EMPIRE OF SILVER by CONN IGGULDEN
and listened to
LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE by AIR
D&B TOGETHER by DELANEY AND BONNIE
OLD IDEAS by LEONARD COHEN
Here’s the thing: the bedroom bookshelf seems to be the place to which new books gravitate, specifically the ones that I’ve bought for myself with the full and certain intention of reading them in the near future, if not immediately. Unfortunately, like most readers, I’m also something of a compulsive book buyer, and so I inevitably end up buying books at a faster pace than I can read them.
The bedroom bookshelf is now full, and I’ve started doubling up on books, which can only mean that the obscured books are destined to be forgotten unless I introduce some form of rotation system, which smacks both of obsessive-compulsive behaviour and the final, desperate days of Rafael Benitez at Liverpool football club.
The bedroom bookshelf problem is compounded by the fact that there are also bookshelves in the hall, the dining room, outside the living room (three), in the guest bedroom (two, both doubled up to the max), and in my office, which is where the advance copies of books sent to me by authors and publishers tend to end up on the grounds that I’m less likely to forget about them if they’re in front of me every day.
Unfortunately, this approach has backfired because of the associations of the bedroom bookshelf with books that are to be read soonest. It would make more sense to put the advance copies on the bedroom bookshelf so that they, too, become sprinkled with immediacy dust, but then where would I put the books that I’ve bought for myself? They can’t go in the hall, the dining room, or outside the living room because those shelves are full. Even if I could put them in the guest bedroom I wouldn’t because, with the best will in the world, those poor books are NEVER going to be read. The guest bedroom is a literary gulag. It is where unread books go to die.
No, the current system, imperfect though it may be, has to continue, but the least I can do is attempt to make some serious inroads into the books in the bedroom. So, for the past month, I’ve been knocking books out of the park, so to speak, as far as the bedroom is concerned, alternating fiction and non-fiction, aided by the fact that I didn’t buy any books at all in January, since nothing came out that I wanted to read. (Actually, I tell a lie: I did, but I left them in another country so they don’t count.)
You know, there is a great satisfaction in reading rapidly, and with serious intent, and clearing one’s shelves along the way. I long ago got over any sentimentality about holding on to books. Unless they’re signed, or have some kind of association with someone I know and like, they go in the charity box once they’re read. I make exceptions for the occasional non-fiction book, and music books that might prove useful for my radio show. Otherwise, once I finish the last page, it’s bye-bye book.
(And, no, I don’t want to hear about how an e-reader might be useful in my case because a) I don’t like using them; b) I prefer reading printed books; and c) you don’t own an e-book (you’re just licensed to access its content), and I like owning books, whatever I may ultimately decide to do with them. End of lesson.)
Anyway, yesterday I finished Len Deighton’s SS-GB, a book recommended to me by my good friend Steve Stilwell, a gentleman with whom I may disagree on many things – generally because he’s wrong and I’m right - but with whom I agree on most. The great thing about SS-GB was that it was a fast read: I began it on Sunday night, and read the last page in bed on Monday night. My previous book – Peter Bart’s INFAMOUS PLAYERS – took me two days, but that was because I was distracted by the weekend’s newspapers. The book before that, which was John Sandford’s BURIED PREY, also took two days, although it shouldn’t really have because I was tearing through the pages. That’s three books in less than a week and, on top of what I’ve already read this month (including TREASURE ISLAND, which I’d somehow neglected to read until now, and A FEAST OF CROW by George RR Martin, which took a while because it’s 1000 pages long, give or take), represents a considerable inroad into the bedroom bookshelf stockpile.
One thing I have noticed, though, is my reluctance to read books that are very thick, or that might take me an unduly long time to get through. A FEAST FOR CROWS represented nearly a week’s reading, and that’s simply not good enough if I’m going to clear some space on the shelf. It’s one of the reasons why I haven’t yet managed to pick up Stephen King’s latest, 11/22/63, as that’s quite a chunk of book change and I don’t want to mess with my momentum. On the other hand, reading 11/22/63 would leave a decent sized hole on the shelf, but it would still only be one book. Then again, TREASURE ISLAND, though dense, was comparatively short, and while I felt a sense of satisfaction in adding another book to the ‘completed’ pile – and a classic, no less – its absence from the shelf didn’t free up much room.
Oh well: I never claimed this was a perfect science, and in my darker moments I acknowledge that I am engaged in a Sisyphean labour. There are still more books in the house than I’m ever going to read, and there are new books on the horizon. As February dawned, books started appearing that I might want to add to the bedroom bookshelf, and last week, in a moment of weakness, I ordered one of them. It was Marcus Berkmann’s A SHED OF ONE’S OWN, which deals with the trials of male middle age and therefore seems somehow appropriate in the context of my current obsession with de-cluttering my bookshelves. Perhaps it’s just one facet of a larger desire to simplify my life as I get older. Having too many unread books on one’s shelves, too many unlistened to records, too many unwatched films, starts to rankle, and becomes an uncomfortable reminder of one’s own imminent mortality. I have to read these books! I’m going to die one day! Maybe soon!
Time to go. I have books to read…
This week John read
SS-GB by LEN DEIGHTON
INFAMOUS PLAYERS by PETER BART
BURIED PREY by JOHN SANDFORD
EMPIRE OF SILVER by CONN IGGULDEN
and listened to
LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE by AIR
D&B TOGETHER by DELANEY AND BONNIE
OLD IDEAS by LEONARD COHEN
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