Is The Book a Hammer?

Author: Bevan Lisle

Abstract
Wired’s techno guru Nicholas Negroponte says the physical book has only five years to live. James Glieck says book coroners like Negroponte are wrong. According to Glieck, the book is a perfect tool just like the hammer. Thousands of years after the first crude nail was smashed into place by a basic hammer, that very same tool is still found in nearly every household. This is the case despite the technological advantages of the nail gun. Could it be that the book is a perfect tool and e-readers like the iPad are nail guns?
This article examines theories on reading the future. Is sentiment blinding us to the true future of the book? Is the book destined to be nothing more than a kind of scented candle? Or is the upcoming version of the book going to be such a different experience we can’t even properly describe it yet? The article examines whether we are going through a predictable pattern of adjustment to new technology in the same way for example the first movies were simply filmed theatre. The article challenges the view the physical book will die and suggests uptake of a more advanced multi-media enriched experience may be based on genre suitability and market segmentation. The kind of transformation envisaged such as when the bound book overtook the scroll is not going to happen the author argues, because the book, like the hammer, has a degree of simple functional perfection that will sustain it.