Aloha from Jayne

So I'm here in Hawaii again (pretty much our most favorite spot on earth) and until a few minutes ago when I came back into the hotel room to write this blog I was sitting out on the lanai reading a good book (Barry Eisler's The Last Assassin. Great story, but that's another story). Anyhow, it occurred to me as I was lounging out there, reading, that, when considered as a bit of technology, the book is just about perfect. It is thousands of years old and very little has been needed in the way of upgrades.

Oh, sure, there has been some experimentation with materials: clay and wax tablets, papyrus, parchment, etc. But somewhere on a wall in Pompeii there's a picture of a woman holding a book called a codex. The codex in her hand is about the same size and shape as the copy of Eisler's book waiting for me out on the lanai. I wonder if it has any love scenes in it? Eisler does a lot of love scenes, which is really interesting given that his hero is a contract killer who gets rid of people in some pretty gruesome ways...But I digress.

There's been a lot of talk about what will replace the book as we know it. Sure, we've got e-books now and everyone is predicting that, in one form or another, they represent the beginning of the end of the book. But I've gotta tell you, I can see the hotel pool from my lanai and no one down there is reading an e-book. They're reading regular books.

As a former (never ex) librarian, I take the long historical view of technological change when it comes to books. See, back when I was a little whippersnapper in library school there was a lot of talk about what would replace the book. Some folks believed that books would be converted into handy-dandy sheets of plastic called microfiche that you could take with you everywhere and that hardly weighed anything. All you needed was a handy-dandy microfiche reader in order to read the fiche. Never did see anyone reaching microfiche at poolside.

Sure microfiche and, now, modern computers make great places to store books and the information they contain. But what's the first thing most people want to do when they discover that they're going to have to read more than twenty pages on a screen? They crank up the printer and start printing out the material. In other words, they make a book out of it - their own little codex.

I guess it is a form-follows-function thing. Books are convenient. It does not require a second kind of technology in order to access one. You just open up the sucker and start reading. You could probably read that codex that the girl on the wall in Pompeii has in her hand, provided you knew Latin. If you don't know Latin you could learn it --from another book.

Books are also comfortable for the human eye (except in the case of paperbacks that are printed in itty-bitty fonts -- blame that on the publisher). And there is something about the eye-hand coordination thing one engages in when reading a book that makes it comfortable for the human brain to absorb the information in the text. Say, if I wanted to go back and re-read one of the love scenes in Eisler's novel, all I have to do is flip back a few pages. I know how to flip pages. It's an eye-hand coordination thing. Sort of like walking and chewing gum at the same time. No special technology required.

And books are attractive. They are pleasing to the human senses on many subtle levels. I love the feel of a new book. I like the fresh crisp pages. When it comes to very old books, I love the fine leatherwork on the covers and I am fascinated with the old paper inside. The cover art on a modern book has a huge impact on me, sometimes negative as in the case of hunk covers, but more often positive. I like the weight of a hardcover in my hand. I like the convenience of a paperback. I like all the information about the book that is printed on the outside -- the title, the name of the author, etc. In short, the format of a book has an appeal that adds greatly to the reading experience.

I'm guessing that, although there will be lots of new technologies coming down the pike designed to store the information contained in books (new kinds of libraries, as it were), it will be a while yet before we actually replace books themselves.

My question to you before I head back out to the lanai is, what do you think the book of the future will look like?