What is a Book?

A member of the Siskiyou Writers’ Club wrote an impassioned defense of hard-copy books for his October challenge. He spoke eloquently of books as objects of art, the look and feel of them, their intangible value independent of their content. The stories and history they contain may survive in electronic formats, but their substance is lost.

            I understand. I have shelves of books. The leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare look beautiful and contain fascinating notes from the editor. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica captures a snapshot of history. The mountains of science fiction, westerns, mysteries, and other novels in their bright paperback covers hold old friends I revisit now and then. I have trouble throwing away any book, be it a battered paperback disintegrating from use or an outdated college economics or chemistry textbook.

            Did the monks and clerks that laboriously copied books, creating the magnificent Book of Kells and other hand-crafted works, bemoan the advent of block printing and typesetting as the death of art even while they rejoiced their release from tedium? Certainly mass-produced paperbacks have been viewed by some as second-class, lacking the crafting and quality of proper books. Somehow the packaging tainted the content.

            Suddenly anyone can publish a book without any review except by readers. You can carry thousands of titles around in one hand. Nothing to read? Access the Internet, connect to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and you can have a new book in a matter of seconds. The content is exactly the same as if you bought the book as a physical thing. It’s green—no paper, no printing, no transportation costs. I find my e-reader easier to hold than a physical book. I can lay it down and still read it.  I never drop it and have to thumb through pages to find my place. I can adjust the print size and brightness. I can sit in the dark and read happily until the power outage ends. 

            But I can’t e-publish my novel and wrap up copies as gifts to friends and family. I can’t autograph copies for the people kind enough to review and critique the drafts for me. I can’t keep a copy near at hand to remind myself that I really did it. The story might be there in my e-reader, but I won’t be able to touch the discrete object that is my book. Somehow the idea of discarding an e-book doesn’t disturb me the way putting a hard-copy book in the trash would do. Something is missing from an electronic version of a book. Maybe I need to consider a print version afterall.