Death of the book ?

The death of the book, like the paperless office, has been predicted so many times that people have given up paying attention. But, for me, at least, it came a big step closer today, at least in one sense, when I downloaded a PDF version of China Mieville’s Iron Council from Amazon.

This event was entirely unplanned. I went to Amazon planning a standard order and noticed that the PDF option was available. Since I didn’t want to pay for postage and wait weeks for delivery (and the PDF version was a bit cheaper anyway) I decided to try it out[1]. The download was pretty straightforward and the Digital Rights Management doesn’t seem too obtrusive – as I understand it I can use the file on as many computers as I want, with just a userid and password.

I’ve read about fifty pages so far[2], and my feeling is that, with a large flat-screen monitor, reading a good-quality PDF is comparable to reading a medium-quality printed book. Given the limitations, particularly the need to sit in one spot, I can’t see this become my preferred mode for a while. Still, there are a lot of advantages to consider, and in many cases, these will outweigh the negatives for me.

First, it means instant cheap access to new books published overseas. This is important for Australians, and others outside the US and UK who often have to wait a long time for ‘colonial’ releases of books published in the metropolitan countries.

Second, there’s essentially no storage problem. Iron Council is 1.7 MB, so I could store about 20,000 similar volumes on an iPod. For someone whose home and office bookshelves are already groaning (and with no wall space remaining for more) this is a big issue.

Third, I can see big advantages for book reviewing of which I do a fair bit. I’ll easily be able to search for bits of text, cut and paste quotes[3] and so on. And presumably we’ll eventually see the kind of added features that have made DVDs so popular.

So, is the death of the book imminent? Not, I think if we value books as texts rather than as physical objects. As I argued here, the idea, pushed by Camille Paglia and others, that the Internet is little more than a turbocharged TV set is the worst sort of pop McLuhanism. It may be that the medium is the message, but that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) refer to the distinction between paper and screens as delivery vehicles. A comic has more in common with a video clip than with a physics text, and a blog has more in common with a magazine than with a movie.

Far from spelling the end of the book, the advent of the Internet, and the expanded possibilities for digital delivery of text, represents the beginning of a new golden age.

fn1. I actually tried more than a decade ago, with a floppy-disk based version of Jurassic Park. It wasn’t unbearably bad, but not an experience I was keen to repeat.

fn2. As with Perdido Street Station, I’m finding it a bit slow going at the start. But I found Perdido Street Station really gripping by the end, so I’m not discouraged.

fn3. At least if Digital Rights Management doesn’t kill this option