The upheaval in the book trade is somehow linked to the ongoing expressions of disquiet about our cultural heritage. As a small-time buyer of used books, may I suggest two further areas to be subjected to cost-benefit analysis?
One is the huge pile of discarded fiction that clutters second-hand bookshops on its’ way to the pulp mill. If booksellers are concerned about cheap books in supermarkets, then perhaps the retail trade has been built on a financial base of junk.
The second is about the number of new homes that include fixed bookshelves. The problem may not be e-books, as such, but the outlays, in money and time, on home entertainment systems and spaces.
What is the nature of the link between the latest airport pot-boiler and Ruskin’s The Stones Of Venice? Until we examine that question, we cannot make presumptions about the future of our literature in a digitised world.
(not published)
