Shirky on the NY TImes Publish or Perish essay.

From Aldus Manutius until recently, book lovers have been the most passionate readers. Now they are mostly just the oldest readers. Thanks to digital data, there is a fateful choice to be made between serving lovers of the text and lovers of the page; I think even Manutius would have sided with the readers over the collectors. I hope today’s publishers do as well.

Am I book lover? I own a lot of books. People who have visited my homes over the years make that point clear to me. In my  Tel Aviv apartment, a guest once asked: “Did you really read all these books?” Our parents don’t understand why we own “so many” books. For each job I get, I also get start up money. It mostly goes towards books. Our books now cover many rooms and shelves. Many are, as well, in our university offices. No room at home. But am I a book lover? Am I an old book lover? Am I old? Almost.

All emotions are tied to memories. I have specific memories of books. I loved the excitement of the  used book at one time. The used book shop in Gainesville, circa 1987, whose name I forget, located in a nondescript strip mall. Cheap paperbacks. Modernist texts. Beats. Poetry collections. Buying books was exciting for some reason.  The Friends of the Library book sale. Waiting in line for two hours or more for the opportunity to buy books. Cheap books.  Was it the love of the book or the cheap book? I don’t buy as many used books any more. I haven’t had the cheap book thrill for quite some time.

Columbia has no thrill seeking used book store. We spent but a few minutes in such a store recently in Omaha. So many titles. Fiction? I didn’t even bother to look. Is the thrill, as B.B. King might say, gone? There were many cookbooks. I didn’t buy any.

Thrills change. Books to comic books to mp3s to beer. Am I a lover of books? Or do I merely love the thrill of collecting? Gathering. Adding to. Searching. Wanting. I am, after all, a consumer. I have no problem with this identity.  Latour writes against the idea of a “progressive” future. The argument over digital/print books is one with the so-called progressive future. Somehow, the argument goes, one of these states of reading will bring a better time. The importance, though, is not progression (i.e., “things will be better”), but instead thrill. Will I still be excited?

Does it matter if a book is ornate, bound in a leather copy, expensive, pretty to look at? Sure. Does it matter if it is online, in a pdf or other portable format, cheap or free? Sure. Which thrill do you seek? Which pleasure moment? Which addition? Which fetish? Where to displace our desire? In a rare beer? A first edition? A never read comic book with a cardboard back in a special plastic wrapper?

Enjoy your fetish. Worry less about its value.