Remember when I mentioned the look-alike covers  of “The Late Age of Print” and another book?  Well, I have finished reading “The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control”, by Ted Striphas.  This book is in essay form, and each essay examines a different aspect of the book world.  Allow me to briefly describe what each essay is about.  That’d be easier for me to do than attempting to summarize the book itself.  There is also an introduction and conclusion, but I’ll focus on the essay subjects themselves.

1:  E-Books and the Digital Future.  Striphas points out at the beginning of this essay that the concept of e-books as we now think of them (the Kindle, the Nook e-reader, etc) actually began much earlier with releases of books over the internet.  He cites the release in 2000 of Stephen King’s first e-book  (“Riding the Bullet”) over the internet for free.  Within 24 hours, about half-a million downloads had been done with this story.  However, e-books haven’t taken off all that quickly, in spite of of e-book readers which are still relatively new.  Striphas feels that e-books are an instance of “controlled consumption” rather than consumer capitalism.

2:  The Big-Box Bookstore Blues.  In this essay, the history of large retail bookstores (such as Barnes and Noble; which has actually been around since the late 1800s, but gradually evolved to where it is now) is followed.  One point Striphas makes is that stores such as Barnes and Noble are not successful solely because they sell best-sellers (which actually accounts for a small percentage of sales) but because:

“They’re not selling different books, inasmuch as they’re selling a different image of bookselling”.

3.  Bringing Bookland Online.  This essay is mostly about how amazon.com began, and how they operate.  Additionally, this essay discusses the history of the ISBN (the multiple digit/barcode that one sees on the back of every book),  how to decode it; and  how it is relevant to book-selling — but especially how amazon.com has used the ISBN to their advantage for their book distribution methods. 

4.  Literature as Life on Oprah’s Book Club.  Why has Oprah’s Book Club been a continuing phenomenon since Oprah announced her first book club pick back in 1996, with “Deep End of the Ocean” by Jacquelyn Mitchard?  This essay theorizes and discusses why; along with bringing up controversies that the club has faced, such as when Jonathan Franzen was embarrassed that his book “The Corrections” was a book club pick; and when it was found that James Frey’s “A Million Little Pieces” was not entirely truthful as an memoir should be.

5.  Harry Potter and the Culture of Copy.  The Harry Potter books are discussed here, ranging from the extreme measures taken to prevent early releases of books (such as GPS devices placed into the delivery trucks) to the problems of piracy to unauthorized versions in other countries which include titles such as China’s “Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon” or Russia’s “Tanya Grotter and the Magical Double Bass”.

Overall, “The Late Age of Print” looks at the above topics, along with others such as the history of bookshelves (in the early part of the 20th century, they were marketed in hopes of homeowners then buying books to fill them) — but the topics all relate to the book industry.  And will books as we know them continue to exist, in spite of continuous change over time?  This book gets you thinking about that.

If you are interested in book culture, you will probably enjoy reading “The Late Age of Print”, in spite of an overall professorial tone the book has (Striphas is, after all, an university professor).  Also, depending on where your interest lies, you may find some essays more interesting than others.  I have to admit the one I found most interesting was the one about Oprah’s Book Club.  Even though I have never watched a single episode of her show, I have been very much aware of which books she picks for her club reads.  And, yes, I’ve read a few of them. 

So, what is your impression of the future of books, and of book culture — past, present, or future?  Any favorite Oprah reads ?

Disclosure:  This book was borrowed from the library.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 9:09 PM and is filed under book review, books, history. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.