Everyone I know who works in the book biz—and even everyone I know who likes to read—is talking about what’s happening to the industry. And folks who are a lot smarter than me have opinions about it. Including best-selling author Nick Hornby.
I love Nick. He makes me laugh. I bought a paperback copy of Fever Pitch at a bookstore in Reading, England, twelve years ago and thereafter quickly powered my way through High Fidelity and About a Boy. Since then I’ve read all his subsequent novels and nonfiction, and occasionally I check in with his “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” column in the monthly magazine Believer. (Because I love anyone who admits he buys more books than he reads.)
In the July/August 2012 issue, Nick talks about the publishing industry. You should read the entire thing; it’s not long. But this made me laugh out loud, mostly because I’ve seen it play out dozens of times for real.
ME: It’s pretty worrying, all this iPad and Kindle stuff.
NICE BOOK LOVER: Why?
ME: It’s not just the physical book that’s under threat. Have you been on a plane or a train recently? Nobody’s reading at all, in any form. They’re all watching screens.
NBL: Oh, I love books.
ME: Yeah, I know, but …
NBL: There’s nothing like the experience of being immersed in fiction.
ME: I agree, but …
NBL: And I could never switch to a Kindle. I love the smell of a new book. The feel of it. I like to know where I am in a book, and …
ME: I know you do, but …
NBL: Plus, I love my local independent bookstore. The people there are so knowledgeable, and they recommend things that they know I’ll—
ME: Yes, but there are only seventy-three of you in the entire country! You’re fifty years old! Your kids don’t even know which way up they should hold a book! The only reason people ever used to read in the first place was because they had nothing else to do, and now they have a million things to do, even in a dentist’s waiting room! Will you shut the f*** up about you?
NBL: I think you should go home now. You’re upsetting the other dinner guests.
He’s only partially right. There are plenty of people reading books (formats may vary). But folks in the publishing industry are concerned, for a variety of reasons, and you should be too. I’ve written about it more than once. You could follow Richard Eoin Nash, Jane Friedman, Mike Shatzkin, and Porter Anderson, just to name a few, to learn more about the issues. If you care about books and the people who write them, you should.
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I’ve gone over to the dark side myself.
Uh-oh! 🙂
From my own experience, (and this is most likely not across the board – I know a fair few avid readers!) the people I know who have Kindles don’t stop reading book-books. But my mum loves her Kindle, especially as it means she can read a book she wants to read instantly, can get a new book while on holiday and doesn’t have five books crammed in her suitcase. Now she has two and her Kindle. And I do think, in terms of the power turning back to the author, maybe ebooks have been a good thing? Yes, there’s a lot of rubbish, poorly written stuff on there but like any fiction you just have to dig through to find the good stuff.
And I’m surprised none of the English students I went to Uni with were told to get a Kindle – they all paid a few quid for a number of books that are on there for free. But then again, I imagine most of them would still have wanted the actual books, I would have.
Like I said, not across the board – just my own close friends and family. But maybe hope isn’t lost? Maybe there’s more than 73 in the country, they’re not all 50 and some are actually those kids who don’t know which way up a book goes.
(Very entertaining read – but then again, NIck Hornby always is!)
Grace, I totally agree — I read both on my Kindle and book-books. (I am stealing that! Book-books! Love it!) I’ve found that I generally prefer b-b’s for nonfiction, and probably for more complex fiction — the kind you might want to page back as you think “Now WHAT was that again?” I’m reading Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall right now on Kindle and wish I had it on a b-b. Thank you so much for stopping by. 🙂
As Grace said, there are still lots of people out there reading books in book form. I see more doing that, actually, than reading on Kindles or iPads. But what I think is interesting is, I never thought I would prefer the latter to actually holding a book in my hands. But the ease of it and the instant availability of books on my iPad have made me a convert! I don’t have room in my house for tons of books, so I don’t buy hard copies any more. I have to think there are many more out there like me. The world of reading is definitely changing! We have to keep up.
I own both. Love my Kindle for travel, in particular — no more lugging 25 pounds of books across the ocean! But I like being able to lend my paper books. 🙂