This is Not the End of the Book
A conversation curated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered' - Umberto Eco.
These days it is impossible to get away from discussions of whether the book will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting ignorance of the future. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air.
This thought-provoking book takes the form of a conversation in which Carrière and Eco discuss everything from how to define the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse.
En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carrière is most sad to have sold. And while, as Carrière says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The table of contents for this book-length conversation between Carri re and Eco, both distinguished writers and collectors of antiquarian books, presents (to an even greater degree than most tables of contents do) a microcosmic view of what's to come: "The book will never die"; "There is nothing more ephemeral than long-term media formats"; "Do we need to know the name of every soldier at the Battle of Waterloo?". The authors range in discussion from why they find stupidity appealing to the niceties of dating antiquarian books. The dialogue is almost oppressively witty and warm but expect few new insights about the crisis of publishing or our digital future as readers. Eco and Carri re ramble with much charm but seem to have been laxly edited. The conversation is too aware of itself as the product of "great men" and blind to some of its own fetishistic cant about the "sacredness of the book."
