A Computer Ate My Book

I don't care about the possibilities inherent in incorporating electronic media into the publishing industry. I like books. The paper kind. With ink and bindings and no batteries. I don't care if I'm supposed to be a part of the i-pod generation or whatever we are, I'm going to stick with my extremist anti-technology grandpa on this one and say that a having a good hardcover copy of "Scaramouche" in my hands is one hundred times better than reading "Scaramouche" chapter by chapter off the internet on my laptop. And yeah, I've done both.

There are so many good reasons to keep books as they are and not bother with this electronic madness. First of all, how fucking boring would "Fahrenheit 451" have been if it were about a bunch of Geek Squad guys running round and wiping literature off of everybody's laptops? Incredibly boring is the answer to that one. Secondly, I don't care how freaking small Apple manages to make their next mac. Books have ALWAYS been portable, and unless you are toting around an unabridged copy of the Oxford English Dictionary, are still more portable AND more durable than even the sleekest of laptops. Third of all, let's not forget that reading is something that everyone should be able to do. It's easy for priveleged people like us (we may not be rich, but the fact that we all somehow scrape up the tuition to attend a private arts school definitely shows that we are priveleged) to forget that only 39% of Americans owned a laptop in 2008. I'm sure the remaining 61% like reading a good story during their lunch break just as much as we do, and they need actual books to do that. Finally, and most importantly of all, books smell good. They smell amazing. If there is a god and he has a scent, it is Old Book Smell. Even Doctor Who says it when taking his latest companion to a planet-sized library in the 51st century- " By now you've got holovids, direct to brain downloads, fiction mist, but you need the smell. The smell of books, Donna!"

Yes. I did just try to use "Doctor Who" as a valid reference in my argument. It's been a long day, ok?

Personally, and I may be a caveman for thinking this, but if I was one day blessed with the opportunity to publish a novel, I'd choose to publish it in a physical, paper-and-ink format in an instant, even if it meant losing a lot of readers who I would have been able to reach out to by publishing online.

Right. Now that I've made that clear, some of the other things that Rushkoff said make sense. Utilizing the internet as a means of promoting your book, for example, is a brilliant idea that I'm sure not everybody is taking advantage of yet. What he seems to be saying is that computers are a great resource when utilized by capable human minds, but that we have yet to see the day when their full potential will be recognized in the publishing world. I can agree with that. I just hope that their full potential isn't good enough that it wipes out printed word.