Books Belong In Bookshops…
Posted: April 25, 2011 Filed under: Thoughts Leave a comment »… and in our hands.
Heather Collins over at the Scottish Booktrust writes on why Books deserve to be sold on the highstreet. While I don’t care for the comparisons with Fairtrade and Organic food I do agree that part of the fun is browsing. I love to browse. I like to walk in and spend ages wandering back and forth looking in books, admiring artwork and generally enjoying myself. The thought that this might stop fills me with a lot of sadness.
Even the Guardian asks Will Books Vanish With Bookshops? I hope not. There’s a part of me that wonders if we’re living in interesting times. I’ve lived through: the fall of the Soviets, I’ve seen space shuttles explode and watched genocide happen Live on television. So will I also watch the end of one of our most important cultural artefacts? Again I hope not. If the future is one where we never leave our homes, where we spend our lives more connected and more distant then it’s a future I don’t look forward to.
Magazines and books didn’t sell any more. Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy. The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.
