A Defence of the Traditional Book

I happen to have just spent the past week or so on work experience with the rather lovely team of Blackstaff Press. When asked to write a piece for their online blog, I jumped at the chance to have a bit of a rant against the perils of the digital age, and thought I'd share that rant here as well.

The world of publishing made for a really interesting experience. Amid jamming the photocopier, marking up proofs and hunting for witty material to entertain the online masses, it was nice to take a moment to sit back and appreciate what was going on around me. That something is perhaps simple on the surface but, for me, is something grand in substance. Books were in the making.

Anyway, along the way I happened to find myself in a small debate. The motion was traditional books ‘v’ e-books. Embrace the digital age he’d said, it’s upon us he’d heralded...to paraphrase of course. He had a point I admit; there is no denying and there is much to be said for the convenience technological updates offer. And while I fully advocate availing of these, there is a line I just cannot cross. Online academic journals are a godsend when that deadline is fast approaching, and the reading so far complete is looking sparse. Online news is equally handy to fill the short commute from A-B, or to grab snippets fast as a headline unfolds.  But this is just about my limit.

When it comes to a good book nothing, in my humble opinion, can measure up to the real thing. For a start there is that distinct and comforting smell of the pages. To dwell on that smell alone evokes memories of infant nap times spent dosing off to The Hungry Caterpillar, of learning to read with Biff and Chip, and later, of classroom friends, of summers spent sprawled in the garden, or of favourite coffee shop haunts. All of these bound up in that same smell. Tell me what the e-reader has on that? A screen backlight does not fond memories make. Then there is the small matter of a cover. I take great pleasure in whiling away entire afternoons hunting in old bookshops and markets in search of covers that I particularly like, the vintage, the beautiful, or the downright weird. There is a victory in snagging a rare copy for a bargain price. And then there is the feel and weight of a book held in your hands, and the physical bookmark charting your progress through. I enjoy all of these things and the digital equivalent offers none of them.

Essentially, and hear me out, some things just cannot be replaced by this digital age. Libraries, the home of the book, are a case in point. There are sites and blogs dedicated to libraries. Beautiful rows of shelves lined with brightly coloured, sometimes wonderfully ornate books. Books of all shapes and sizes, of all genres, books ordered meticulously. People literally aspire to re-create these spaces – granted on a smaller scale – in their homes. What are these wonderful places to be replaced with? I can only envision some nightmarish dystopia where the iconic library with its walls covered in books, the place of hushed whispers and comfy chairs, is replaced with large vacant rooms fitted with stylistic chrome mantles, upon which single electronic e-readers rest. Picture an Apple store, but quiet, and you would be along the right lines. It doesn’t really measure up some how, does it?

Ultimately, a book holds none of the distracting capabilities that an e-reader fortified with Internet connection is prone to causing. Nor is it reliant on battery and likely to die at any moment… well if you’re me anyway. And one final consideration, let’s face it, when you accidentally drop your book you are left with a damaged spine, a few crumpled pages, a tear at worst. What you are not though, is left with a hefty fee and zero books to call your own. I believe on that note, I rest my case.

Where do you stand on the e-book, paper book debate?

You can see my post as well as a host of others here!

A Kind of Kin - Rila Askew

Brace yourself for one hell of a mess, and one hell of a struggle. Thought provoking and fast paced this one is a definite page-turner.

Welcome to Cedar, Oklahoma, 2008. The big issue of the day is immigration and this town is at the centre of a political storm. Bill 1830 has just been passed creating havoc as the Mexican inhabitants are rounded up and driven out of town.

Meanwhile, at the centre of it all the Brown family is being torn apart in the impact of the very same bill. Bob Brown, steadfastly holding to his Christian values, has been arrested for harbouring ‘illegal aliens’. His orphaned grandson has gone missing, his granddaughter is harbouring her previously deported husband, and his daughter, Sweet, struggles to hold it all together amid a marriage that is rocked by a revelation of betrayal. As she struggles to reconcile her Christian ethics with a sense of lawfulness there is an ongoing tension as Sweet finds no simple black and white to the matter, but a host of blurred lines and grey areas only. We follow along as she navigates these grey areas and witness just how quickly events can spiral completely out of control.

Tackling an issue as heated as immigration risked the story descending into a tit-for-tat polemical take on things. Instead, Askew has managed something of a greater richness. Woven through the book are several narratives. From the self-concerned author of the bill in question, Representative Monica Moorehouse, who is caught up in her life of political game play and tactics, to Luis, a Mexican man risking it all in search of his sons, we see the impact and divisive nature of the issue across the wide scope of society. In these multiple narratives Askew provides a more nuanced look at the complexities of the issue at hand.

There is so much going on in this book. The lives within are messy and complicated; they feel altogether authentically real. And yet, Askew manages to interweave events seamlessly making for a smooth and fast-paced read. One cannot help but hold their breath with a growing sense of dread as events race ahead to culminate in one grand standoff between the town and the law.

In the end, Askew’s tale stands as a nod to the ties that bind, protect and see us through the hard times. This is a tale of standing up for one’s beliefs and persevering through, of ploughing on with hope that everything will turn out right in the end. 

http://www.amazon.com/Kind-of-Kin