Society Spotlight – LitSoc

Continuing our Society Spotlight feature, Exeposé Books takes a look at what the Literary Society is all about…

‘So what’s the difference between LitSoc and the English Society?’ A question that most LitSoc members have fielded at least once. The answer? The English Society is an academic society for people who study the subject, whereas the Literary Society is a place for anyone and everyone who likes books.

In LitSoc we have everyone from engineers to historians, and of course, like every books-related society, a good number of English students as well. The one thing we all have in common is a love of books.

The aim of LitSoc is to get all these campus book-lovers together to meet like-minded people and have a good ol’ chinwag about books, whether this is over a pint or two (and a pizza) in the Old Firehouse, or at a tea party with ample amounts of cake.

We organise regular book nights where we chat about a work that has particularly interested us. We also hold book swaps – to expand our collection of reading material and finally get rid of those copies that we’re never actually going to read – and screenings of films that have been adapted from our favourite literature.

We enjoy going on trips; last term saw a visit to Bath to check out the Jane Austen museum and the renowned Christmas market. Later this term we will hopefully be travelling to Hay-on-Wye to browse its impressive collection of second hand bookshops.

We also enjoy a good literary-themed party. We’re already getting excited about our Ball on a Boat taking place at the end of term. This will be a party with a Death on the Nile theme on a boat making its way up the river Exe from Exmouth, to see out the LitSoc year in style!

Perhaps my favourite aspect of LitSoc is the sheer range of literary interests that it encompasses. Whether you’re a lifelong Sherlockian, a lover of poetry or someone who enjoys nothing more than a good bestseller, there will be people in LitSoc who share your interests.

However interesting the books on your course, we all need a chance to broaden our literary horizons and read for pure enjoyment. We all need an opportunity to chat about books in a context where we don’t always have to keep half a mind on thoughts of essays and exams. If you’re worried that university is in danger of taking your love of reading away – don’t be! LitSoc gives you the chance to enjoy talking about books for its own sake and rediscover your old literary loves.

Equally, if you feel that there’s no space to explore books within your chosen course, LitSoc can provide the perfect outlet for your reading impulses. What better antidote to heavy course textbooks than losing yourself in a discussion about your favourite author?

Ultimately, LitSoc is the place for people who love reading to get together and talk about it.

Sophie Beckett, Online Books Editor

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Performance poet John Cooper Clarke review

John Cooper Clarke; Wycombe Swan, 22nd November 2013

Clad in animal print leggings and Cuban heel boots, with a vicarious mane of flyaway black hair and darkly elusive Ray-Bans perched on the bridge of his nose, John Cooper Clarke is certainly not your average poet.

Image credit: Johncooperclarke.com

Emerging in the 1970s on the perfectly-ripped coat-tails of the punk movement, Clark became known as its resident poet, with numerous books and CD recordings of his performances to his name. His poetry deals with the gritty and harsh realities of urban British life, free from rose-tinted idealism and flowery over-production. The echoes of his prose are felt today from festivals to pub nights, in the final scene of the Sopranos, to the present GCSE syllabus. His wit and talent have inspired a new generation of musical poets, collaborating recent with both Plan B and Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, on whose latest album, closing track I Wanna Be Yours is music written to Clarke’s verse. It is a profoundly depressing fact that a man of such cultural and artistic significance cannot sell out a thousand-seat theatre just outside London, but that was nevertheless the case.

Clarke was obviously unwell in this performance, but constantly apologetic, and deserves admirable recognition for choosing to continue with the show rather than cancel. Plied with drink after drink (“for medicinal purposes”) this was a no-holds barred humorous and utterly unapologetic saunter through famous and well-loved classic material, with a good deal of new and unfamiliar poems scattered in for variety. Both Beasley Street and Evidently Chicken Town drew cheers and raucous applause from the small audience, a devoted core of fans whose presence certainly didn’t go unappreciated. Poems were inter-spliced with one-liner jokes, anecdotes and elaborate stories, making this performance in parts more akin to a stand-up gig (and a good one) than a poetry recital. The evening was mismatched and all over the place, much like Jonny himself, but part of the charm and appeal of his performances is never quite knowing what to expect. But one fact remained fiendishly clear: Clarke’s biting satire and often side-splittingly funny work holds the same resonance today as it did when it was first written.

Image credit: johncooperclarke.com

However, the most impressive part of the night’s entertainment came in the form of Clarke’s support act, Luke Wright, a thirty-something Essexonian complete with skinny jeans and even more impressive hair. His set lasted for the entire first half, presenting a thought provoking modern take British culture that seemed to strike particular resonance with the audience: both his live CD Essex Lion and book Mondeo Man had sold out by the end of the interval. If anything, the strength of both his performance and original prose should serve a comfort to both us, and Jonny, that the future and legacy of spoken word is certainly in safe hands.

 John Cooper Clarke still has many upcoming gigs, for more information click here.

Madeleine Soper

Ape & Essence – Aldous Huxley

In his first piece of the new year, Books Team Writer Rhys Rowlands praises Aldous Huxley’s lesser known classic Ape & Essence…

“Do you think Gandhi was interested in art? I think you’re right. Neither in art nor in science. And that’s why we killed him… Yes, we. The intelligent, the active, the forward-looking, the believers in Order and Perfection. Whereas Gandhi was a reactionary who believed only in people”.

With the end of the Second World War came the Cold War and inspiration for Ape & Essence, a novel far too often side-lined for the parable of Bernard Marx. Sixteen years after Brave New World Huxley certainly hadn’t given up on his role as dystopian harbinger-in-chief.

The first part of the novel, Tallis, recounts the discovery of the novel’s second part, Ape & Essence. Two producers stumble across the film script for Ape & Essence, narrowly saving it from destruction, before beginning a search for William Tallis, the elusive writer of the piece. Tallis’ script follows a group of scientists from the ever-idyllic New Zealand, untouched for lack of strategic importance, on a journey to re-discover America. Here they meet a brutal race of devil worshipping humans whose Spartan existence involves killing all children with deformities and fiercely punishing anyone caught having sex outside of a short yearly festival.

 

Ape & Essence is far more overtly political than its predecessor. The prophetic generality of Brave New World is contrasted here with a direct attack on the war mongering superpowers of the 20th Century. The plot is interjected with surreal scenes set, or at least so Tallis wished, to Debussy. Two armies of apes face each other, each with their own Einstein’s, Pasteur’s, and Faraday’s held on leashes. As the two armies orgiastically chant various patriotic songs chemical and biological weapons are released ensuring the total destruction of each side. These are the MAD circumstances that Huxley believed the Second World War had produced and a parody of the coming war that he believed they would foster.

Huxley’s depressingly bleak view of the human condition never fails to impress. Although we live today in no post-apocalyptic New Zealand, mutually assured destruction or even communist water fluoridation no longer pose the same threat as they did 70 years ago. That the resulting narrative at times appears sensationalist is our problem, not Huxley’s. In the context of looming nuclear proliferation Ape & Essence is a truly great example of political commentary.

Ape & Essence sits comfortably among such giants as Fahrenheit 451 and 1984. Sadly it was never revisited by Huxley but nonetheless remains arguably his foremost work, easily challenging Brave New World for the title.

Rhys Rowlands

Books Team

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Debate – Did it live up to the book?

Its a debate! Iona Bepey and Ifeoluwatolani Omotola conclude our look at the success of film adaptations as they outline their opposing views…

Iona Bepey sympathises with filmmakers who have to deal with crazy fan reactions.

With film adaptations, the phrase ‘didn’t live up to the book’ has become fairly commonplace. We’re lucky enough to live in an era where barely a piece of print meets publication without talks of a movie being spawned from the pages, but can a ‘Page-to-Screener’ really ever do the original work justice? Is it pure sloppiness on the part of cast and crew that sees so many filmgoers leaving the cinema feeling let down? Or are we of a generation who simply underestimates the gravity of responsibility and pressure when it comes to the difficult task of producing not only a film in and of itself, but of material with a pre-existing, fiercely-loyal fanbase..?

I’m of the opinion we ought to pity filmmakers; that is, any filmmaker charged with adapting a popular novel into an international Hollywood blockbuster. Try to imagine the expanse of the task: 391 pages in Catching Fire, and two, maybe two-and-a-half hours to shoehorn them all into a format satisfying enough to appease the legions of The Hunger Games fans the globe-over, simultaneous to scoring the Big Time with critics, and even selling the story to those who haven’t encountered the original media before. As Suzanne Collins herself might say, the odds are most decidedly not in your favour.

A point of reckoning most of the novel-to-film genre’s harshest critics tend to forget is that if what you’re after is a page-by-page reading of the original book, these are not the droids you’re looking for. Lionsgate Films, I imagine, would have had a hard time meeting their $700 million box office landslide with Jennifer Lawrence reading an audiobook of the original The Hunger Games novel. The solution: learning to take what’s given to us at face value.

As a big fan of visual as well as purely transcribed storytelling, I’ve never balked at the idea of a favourite novel setting course for the silver screen, aware though I am that the book is usually better. However, I’ve made my peace with the fact that not every detail of the novel will make it into the script; annoying, certainly, but it shouldn’t detract from your enjoyment of the film for what it is – an adaptation.

Perhaps it’s as simple as changing the order you approach material; if we saw the film before experiencing the book, would we be as disappointed post-cinema?

My advice is see the film first; join the thrumming crowds of moviegoers and reviewers, ranting about ‘Terrific, sophisticated comedy’, ‘Film of the year’ and ‘Rated ‘Thor’ out of Five’ (with thanks to Empire Online) before you attempt to read the original. When you inevitably discover the book was better… well. At least you can walk away with the knowledge that at one point at least, you enjoyed the film too.

So let’s try for some sympathy, in particular for the poor sod charged with turning Fifty Shades into something almost watchable. Perhaps we’ll hit a benchmark wherein the film adaptation is actually the better of the two… Forgive me, though, for not holding out too much hope!

Iona Bepey

Whereas Ifeoluwatolani Omotola argues that films and books just shouldn’t be compared.

When a studio or author announces that a beloved novel is being translated for screen there is a rush of criticism, some good, some bad and some hysterical. Often readers don’t want their beloved characters altered in the page to screen translation. Alterations to a character or plot often occur as a result of cost or time, helping to cater to a wider audience since not everything in a book can work in film. The best part of a book is the imagination factor since, barring extremely vivid descriptions, with a book the world is your oyster and each person has their own subjective imagination. How I might imagine the hunky hero is very different from the physical characteristics my best friend may picture. In my opinion this is one of the key reasons for negative fan reactions. Most recently there was a small wave of controversy following the casting of the leads in the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey film. When we attempt to solidify the vague literary imaginings that occur of the page (by defining what characters, places or even accents actually are like with films) it’s bound to contradict with someone’s own subjective idea. After all, one can’t please everyone.

Some films adaptations even have no similarity whatsoever to the books they claim to emulate. For me this was especially obvious with World War Z. Beyond the name and the concept of zombies the film was completely different from the book – although I did enjoy it. But once in a while I come across a film adaptation I find so terrible I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at what has been done to what might have been a great book. This was the case with my favourite book, The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I have read and reread that book dozens of times and, although it’s not by any means perfect, I love it. So when I found out it was going to be made into a movie I was initially sceptical. Anyone who has read the book before will know that there is a lot of internal thought and character reflections, so I couldn’t help but worry how this would work on the big screen. I was thrilled with the trailer, which was amazing. But I can honestly say that The Host was one of the worst films I have ever seen; the plot and concept just did not fit the medium of film.

So as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is released to the general viewing public, I will be there front and centre, fingers crossed (much like I was with the first one). I sometimes feel that the books vs film argument is an unfair comparison. Books can be hundreds or thousands of pages long. With films something is usually lost in translation and that is why when someone asks me which I prefer I will always stick to the original.

Ifeoluwatolani Omotola

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Film Adaptations: Are Books Under Threat?

With many of the recent blockbusters originating as books, regular writer Emma Pidsley asks if films are becoming substitutes for reading. Does film adaptation help the reception of novels or pale them into insignificance?

With Meg Rosoff’s novel How We Live Now recently made into a film, and the fantastic novel The Book Thief due for release later this month, books are constantly being turned into films, and hence perhaps threatened by the ever-increasing amount of blockbusters. While I was watching the trailer of The Book Thief, I was a bit sceptical about how it will translate into film. Anyone who has read this (and if not then I would really recommend it!) will know that it is narrated by death, who plays a very symbolic and important role in the story. Understandably, it was decided not to include this narrative device in the film, probably because it wouldn’t work in quite the same way and would be in danger of becoming distasteful. Touches like this that work so well on paper can never be fully transferred to the screen.

When a book is transferred to film the characters and places are immediately frozen in a specific idea of how they should be. For me, Keira Knightley will always be Elizabeth Bennet. When I later saw the BBC version it just felt strangely wrong. As much as I adore the film, the problem is that I won’t be able to read the book now without thinking of the film, and this is probably a similar case for everyone else who’s seen it. Books work so well precisely because people can read the same thing and each imagine a completely different world. In a way, when reading a book you make it your own story. People may watch Pride and Prejudice, or The Great Gatsby, and decide that they need not read the novels.

On the other hand, the popularity of some films definitely improves the popularity of the book they are based on. For example I had never heard of The Hunger Games series before the first film came out, and now all my friends are imploring me to read the books, there is a strong desire to find out what happens next before the films come out. One of the interesting things about watching an adaptation is being able to compare it to the novel.

The key thing that makes the book sometimes more rewarding than its film version is the subtlety found between the pages. Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby is an amazing artistic spectacle but some viewers I know would prefer a more sophisticated, less brash adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel. I think that books will more often than not trump their adaptations, which are after all just a reader’s interpretation.

Emma Pidsley, Books Team

Does the Turn of the Page Still Terrify?

It’s the spookiest week of the year, and Thomas Davies and Maddy Walters discuss whether paper or celluloid gives them a bigger fright and whether books or screen provide nightmares for longer…

FILMS – In my mind to have a successful horror story you need three things: involvement, tension and the ‘whoa factor’: the actual scare. In all three of these areas films and games are far better at creating a good scare than books.

As for involvement, a film is more accessible than a book to most people. I’m not saying books are difficult, it’s just films are undoubtedly easier. With a book the words create a barrier of sorts that could stop you from accessing the full dread of a page; the elaborate nature of the language takes away from the raw horror of what unfolds. Games throw you right into the action – you can’t get more involved than that.

For build-up in films and games we have sound. A well-placed soundtrack can do wonders for a scary scene: the odd noise, the whistle of the wind, the dramatic score of Psycho or Jaws, from creepy to heart-pounding. A book can’t provide quite the same experience. It can describe scary sounds but you, the reader, have to make them up in your mind which doesn’t have the same effect as actually hearing a sound. The anticipation of hearing a twanging string piece as the full moon rises is unparalleled in the world of literature even by some of the most evocative descriptions.

Finally, it’s the ‘whoa’ factor where films and games triumph over literature. It’s one thing to read about a goblin jumping on someone from behind, it’s quite another to watch it happen. The horrified expression of the victim, the repulsive look of the monster’s face and the desperate struggle that unfolds before your eyes is much more powerful on screen than when you read about it. This is particularly true in games where you are the victim; there’s definitely an added adrenaline as you fight off demons or zombies that appear out of nowhere. We humans use sight as our primary sense, and it’s films and games that exploit that to their fullest.

Horror films, games and books have a lot of things in common, but it’s only films and games that fully use all the tricks to their advantage. The visuals, the sound and the action suck the audience into the scene and force you to believe in the tale. You may create your own chills from books, but horror films are your worst nightmares.

Thomas Davies

BOOKS – We’ve all had the night: innocently drowsing, the mind wanders, and eyes lose their focus. Suddenly, the shadow created by the clothes hanging on the wardrobe transforms to the shape of the murderer/villain/mad-person from the horror story you haven’t quite been able to shake.

For me, it’s Jack Torrance, protagonist of The Shining. However, it is not Jack Nicholson who haunts my nightmares, but the image I invented for myself when reading the book as an innocent 15-year-old. Since then, I’ve watched the film, and, masterpiece though it is, there is no way the motion picture can compare to the captivating horror of the book.

This is due to the inherent process of reading itself. A book only provides descriptions, and leaves it up to the reader to colour in the details: the look, the person, the setting. The reader becomes part of the story and more importantly, the story becomes part of the person. The direct communication reading provides to the imagination-centre of the brain, the area that (for me, anyway) kicks into gear in the minutes before sleep, means that these are the images that greet my closed eyes on the night the wardrobe and its shadows begin misbehaving. Despite watching horror films before and after reading this book, it’s Jack that haunts my dreams, never the Ring-girl or Jigsaw.

When reading, the mind is active; it cannot look away. When watching, the mind is passive, we can close our eyes, hide behind the pillow, and shield ourselves from the images on the screen. When the images are inside the mind, they become harder to ignore, and possess us in a very real way.

I’m not going to deny that films can be terrifying. Many a night I have spent regretting my decision to watch The Ring, The Exorcist, or Saw, but the fact is that the two hours-or-so spent in front of the television are far more fleeting than the week-or-so spent with a novel. They take up more of my time, and thus become a greater part of my life. And while these films have the power to scare, they exist and will always exist as things in the physical world, regardless of whether I watch them or not. For me, however, a book comes alive when it is read, and much like a horror-story character, once I have given them life, they never seem to leave me alone.

Maddy Walters

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How can we get more kids reading?

Would your childhood have been the same without reading? For many people the answer would definitely be no, and yet increasing numbers of children are growing up without reading at all outside of school. Emma Lock looks at why this is happening and what can be done to prevent it…

Photo Credit: Christchurch City Libraries

A recent survey by the National Literacy Trust has found that the number of children reading outside school has dropped by almost 25% since 2005. The survey also picked up on increasing negative attitudes towards reading, with more than one in five of those responding saying that they would be ‘embarrassed’ if their peers caught them reading.

Of course, one survey is not a reason to panic about some kind of impending literary doom – reading is still a popular activity for many children, and hopefully it always will be. But this report did strike me as incredibly sad – my childhood wouldn’t have been the same without all the books I devoured, and I still have very fond memories of my favourites. The idea that some kids could be missing out on all those great literary experiences because they’re embarrassed to be seen with a book is frankly tragic. It highlights the wider issue of negative attitudes towards reading, something many will be aware of – particularly those of us who spent our childhood in the company of books and may have been on the receiving end of lazy stereotyping as a result.

There is a clear contradiction present in attitudes towards reading. We (rightly) place great importance on reading and everything it can do for children; but the word ‘bookish’ is still a derogatory term, and saying that a child ‘likes reading’ is laden with allusions to being quiet or dull. There is no point moaning about children not reading enough and then, in the next breath, dismissing those that do as being somehow boring or weird – that’s not going to persuade anyone.

Photo Credit: adwriter

The children’s fiction market is exciting and diverse, and it seems a massive waste for any child to feel unable to make the most of it. Children’s literature isn’t dominated by The Famous Five anymore – JK Rowling has been widely credited with bringing reading to a generation, and while reading has traditionally been seen as a ‘girly’ pursuit, in recent years the fiction market aimed at boys has progressed in leaps and bounds, particularly fuelled by authors such as Anthony Horowitz and Charlie Higson. The Twilight saga has done a similar thing for teenage girls; much as I might personally detest its helpless, co-dependent undead-chasing, there’s little arguing with the fact that it (and the litany of dubious vampire fiction it spawned) has made reading acceptable for an age group of girls often on the cusp of abandoning a childhood love of reading for their own undead-chasing activities.

Of course, there will always be some children who just don’t like reading, and that’s absolutely fine. What we need to do is make it OK for kids to like books, so that those who do like reading feel able to do so without worrying about whether people will judge them for it. It shouldn’t be any more embarrassing to be seen with a book than it is to be seen with a football or a hairbrush. It is a long shot – we’re going against generations of stereotypes and playground teasing here – but attitudes can be changed, and if it means that children feel happier and more comfortable reading, it’s definitely worth the effort.

The message is quite simple: books are awesome.

Emma Lock, Books Team

So what exactly is the Booker Prize?

Anyone with half an eye on the literary world can’t help but notice the hype around the Booker Prize which is everywhere at this time of year. Recently, this Booker frenzy has only been intensified by the contoversy surrounding the decision to make American authors eligible for the prize. But what exactly is all the fuss about? Elli Christie, Books Editor, takes a closer look…

Photo Credit: TheManBookerPrizes

The Man Booker Prize, or as it is more commonly known, the Booker, is a prize which many British and Commonwealth writers have long yearned to win. Soon it will be possible for writers the world over to join in this yearning, since it was recently announced that from 2014 the prize will open up to any work which is written in English and published in the UK.

This news of change has created a uproar in the literary community. The Booker has been at the heart of British publishing since it was first started in 1968, when it was originally known as the Booker McConnell prize due to the company which sponsored it. However, this change in criteria is not the first in the Booker’s history nor is it the first controversy. Previous arguments have seen Trainspotting removed from the longlist in 1993, Anthony Burgess refusing to turn up and many of the judging decisions being called into question.

Those in charge of the Man Booker committee also love to have spin-off competitions; which has led to Midnight’s Children winning The Best of the Booker, the Booker of Bookers prize and the Man Booker itself. In 2010 there was also an attempt to rectify the misfortune of losing a year when the rules were changed in 1970 so that books were no longer considered from the previous year but instead from the current one. J. G. Farrell’s Troubles won this prize after a shortlist was given to the public vote.

This year the shortlist has proved to once again epitomise the eclectic nature of the Man Booker prize, ranging from Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries and also including NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, Jim Crace’s Harvest, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. The winner will be announced on 15 October, having been previously slimmed down from a long list of 13 titles and a possible pool of 140 novels by a judging panel chaired by Robert Macfarlane.

Elli Christie, Books Editor

A good book has no ending …

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Emma Holifield, Books Editor, examines the ongoing adaption of literary works to stage musicals

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BEING Books Editor it’s safe to say that I’m a little bit fond of literature. But dare I say it, there may be one thing I like even more; musicals. I’m not an all-singing, all-dancing lunatic waiting to burst into song as if I’m in Glee (although I would be in full support of other people who could actually sing doing this). But there’s something about the intensity of musicals that makes the emotions expressed a whole lot more epic, not to mention providing a catchy tune or two to get you through those boring essays.

Image Credit: Flickr user Melork

Musicals inspired by books are everywhere in the theatre world, combining my two loves in one wonderful package. There are hugely successful musicals such as Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, a reinterpretation of Gaston Leroux’s classic French novel. The musical is now celebrating an astonishing 27 years on the West End.  In contrast there are the not so successful musicals. For instance, the musical version of The Lord of the Rings, famously plagued by cast injuries, ran for only a year, with the epic trilogy crammed into a three hour musical romp failing to appeal to critics and audiences alike.

Other smash-hit adaptations are rife, with Wicked, Oliver and Les Misérables being personal favourites (the latter of which I LOVED way before the film … #hipster). Poetry has also been used as musical theatre inspiration, with T.S. Eliot’s whimsical poem Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats inspiring Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famous production Cats. Even The Bible and now, The Book of Mormon have inspired hugely successful musical releases.

As with all adaptations one can question which is better? Do musicals add welcome razzmatazz to tomes or do they bastardise the literary canon? Always liking to experience the literary inspirations for adaptations, I rushed to get my hands on a copy of Wicked and Les Misérables after becoming obsessed with their musical counterparts.

In some cases I enjoyed the original more, with the book of Phantom of the Opera inciting a sense of trepidation that I hadn’t felt during the musical. However, with others I was hugely disappointed. Although irrefutably good stories (I’m not about to criticise Hugo’s monumental work), I found that the literary originals lacked the hype and excitement of their musical offspring. Somewhat naively, I was hugely disappointed that my favourite tunes didn’t spark up during important moments and eventually, I must concede, I got so bored I gave up; apparently there’s only so much I can hear about a very pious, but none-the-less very boring, French bishop without needing a song to perk things up.

Image Credit: Andy Roberts

I’m not saying all books can be improved by being turned into musicals; Lord of the Rings is testament to that. In fact, not all books should be adapted in this way. For instance, I doubt even Andrew Lloyd Webber could make a coherent musical out of The Odyssey (although, I’m horrified to announce that someone has tried). But with plenty more book to musical adaptations set to grace our theatres in the future, I will continue to watch in awe at the sets, costumes and of course songs that revitalise many books, bringing some into the spotlight that I hadn’t previously considered.

 

Emma Holfield, Books Editor

Tomes or Tombs?

James Crouch examines the future of books and why he thinks they will survive…

Photo Credits: Flickr user DrabikPany

If you’re an author and you’re sitting on a first-class train leaving any London terminus, you’ll probably be expecting a P45 form from your publisher sometime soon. Every journey I’ve gone on all I see are people scoffing their free coffee, tea and biscuits while looking at Kindle or another device for electronically reading books.

Even for newspapers, if you are a Times reader you are often offered a digital package alongside the standard package, where no paper is involved at all. When you think about how expensive books probably are to make compared to merely pulling together a few hundred e-pages and creating an ‘Add To Basket’ button, no wonder people are worried about the death of books.

Fortunately though, the world is not always as it seems. Although it may seem like e-books are the new easy-to- get thing, let’s remember all the things real books still have going for them. For a start, Kindles are a decently heavy investment before you actually get anything to read. This is something I think most people will regard as a waste of money – as I do quite frankly. Especially because of how easy and cheap books have become – and I mean that as a compliment!

Amazon has become an Aladdin’s cave for almost any book you could possibly want. Big, small, thin, fat, used, new, hardback, paperback, they have the book for you. Used Twilight Saga? One whole penny? Go on, why not. Brand new prints of the classics such as the brick-like War and Peace for only two quid? Sure thing! Books have never been so cheap or so easily available.

Photo Credits: Flickr user geishaboy500

Then there are the personal things, such as gifts. A book I got from my Nan had a lovely handwritten message that you just couldn’t put on an e-book – without ruining the screen that is. And of course, nothing beats a good hardback book. Just looking at some leather-bound old books forces you to believe that they’ll be around forever.

And if that’s not enough to restore your faith in humanity’s faithful relationship with the printed and published word, just think about universities. Considering how long it takes to photocopy a chapter of some obscure thinker on the topic of methodological philosophy or some such nonsense, how long do you really think it’s going to be until the Forum Library is digitised? You’ll be waiting until kingdom come, which is, coincidentally, roughly speaking how long I think books will still be a part of our lives for.

James Crouch