Books are Dead... Long Live Books

The death of reading is a hot topic. It’s not new.

The end of books was hotly debated in 1895 in France, when Albert Robida and Octave Uzanne wrote their collection, “Stories for Bibliophiles.”

At the dawn of recorded music, speech and film, Uzanne and Robida cast their predictions of a post-literate society. Newspapers disappear. Everything from bedtime stories to current affairs are read by presenters, who are more prized for their personalities than the accuracy or quality of their content. Influencers, anyone?

Anxiety about the survival of books ebbs and flows with each new technology.

Today, AI is assumed to be the challenger. But, attention-grabbing apps of all types compete with quiet, focused book reading.

Are we becoming more or less literate?

Is critical thinking on the decline? What is the future of the humble printed book, that unparalleled tool of thought transmission, magic carrier of ideas over time and space.

Unsurprisingly, most people have never heard of “The End of Books.”

Nor would they know the authors, though hugely famous in their day. So, peel yourself away from the endless feeds.

Get literate. Read. And Subscribe.

In this edition of Ink & Time, you’ll get:

Here’s another gem from Albert Robida, his masterpiece graphic novel never before translated into English, until now.

The narrative of the demise of reading is a persistent cultural anxiety. Pumped by sensational headlines, yet for many it cuts to the core of what it means to be human.

Realities are more nuanced. Let’s unpack it.

Americans are doing less recreational reading.

An influential Atlantic article brought widespread attention to professors' reports that students arrive at prestigious universities unable to engage with full-length texts. 

But the evidence is debated.

Some believe it’s caused by teachers shifting from assigning complete books to excerpts and short-form texts, though these claims are not based on systematic educational research.

Neil Postman's 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" remains a touchstone in debates about reading's decline. 

He argued television was incompatible with the sustained, logical thinking required for democratic discourse and deep learning. His argument has grown all the more relevant as social media and smartphones supercharge the distracted, entertainment-focused culture he predicted.

The battle over the medium of reading is about how we process information.

It’s widely established that comprehension suffers when people read on screens versus paper.

Social media is well known to be especially problematic for sustained attention.

But, social media has also created new reading communities.

Historical literacy data tells us that widespread book reading is relatively recent. 

Rather than a “death of reading,” current trends may reflect adaptation to new information environments. While recreational book reading has declined, overall text consumption has increased dramatically.

We are exposed to more written content than any generation in history.

But, do we understand and remember it? Does it make an impact or just distract us? The definition of "reading" itself has evolved.

Audio consumption through podcasts and audiobooks is a growth area, with 31% of adults listening to audiobooks in recent surveys. If you believe listening to a book is just as good as reading it, then be sure to read the essay below.

Could it be more propaganda from the earbud manufacturers?

Educational institutions are adapting to accommodate changing reading habits. Many professors have reduced page counts while focusing on engagement with shorter texts.

Is this a practical adjustment? Or accommodation, hastening the erosion of skills and pandering to declining standards?

Evidence suggests reading culture is transforming rather than simply declining.  Recreational book reading has measurably decreased. Attention spans are shorter. Yet, literacy rates remain historically high. Text consumption continues in new forms.

Is it ok to leave books on the shelf (or consign them to museums), while kids read short digital texts? Or does this imperil the future of society?

Deep reading skills are essential for complex analysis and empathy development. It’s erosion is a problem.

The shift toward surface-level, fragmented text consumption is certain to undermine critical thinking. Civic engagement in conditions where no one can pay attention for more than a minute is equally troubling.

Any notion of democracy goes out the window if citizens can’t think.

Awareness of the challenges has sparked renewed debate about educational reform and innovation. Will interventions be made in time? Or is an entire generation at risk of cognitive under-development?

We should not accept a simplistic "death of reading" narrative. We owe more than that to future generations.

Reading culture is evolving. But we should also not accept the blinkered notion that scrolling digital feeds is the same as reading books. That is naive and dangerous.

Continue below to understand the debate from 1894, which is surprisingly relevant in today’s world of audiobooks and talking algorithms.

Despite the impassioned argument, books are still here.

In my view, they’re not going anywhere, but instead will increase in value - intellectual, emotional, monetary, humanistic - the deeper we dive into digital being.

(The text below has been abridged to focus on the core issues of books)

(link to original French; link to English edition in Scribner’s Magazine, Jul-Dec, 1894)

It was about two years ago, in London, that the question of the end of books—their complete transformation—was debated by a small circle of bibliophiles and scholars during a memorable evening that surely remains vivid in the mind of every participant.

…

We left the Royal Institution deeply stirred by the grand problems the Glasgow professor had tackled so scientifically. Our minds ached, almost crushed by the colossal figures with which Sir William had juggled. Silent, we walked back—eight of us, philologists, historians, journalists, statisticians and genteel onlookers—in pairs along Albemarle Street and Piccadilly.

…

“Well then, my dear bibliophile, will you not speak in turn? Will you not tell us what is to become of letters, writers and books a century hence? Since we are reshaping future society to our liking tonight—each of us shedding some luminous ray into the dark night of centuries to come—light us with your lighthouse beam; cast your glow upon the horizon.”

…

What I Think About the Fate of Books, My Friends

“The question is fascinating, all the more because I had never posed it to myself until this very moment.

“If by books you mean our innumerable gatherings of printed paper—folded, sewn, trimmed, wrapped in a cover announcing the title—I must frankly confess that I do not believe, and that the advances of electricity and modern mechanics forbid me to believe, that Gutenberg’s invention can escape falling more or less soon into obsolescence as the vehicle of our intellectual productions.

“Printing—which Rivarol so shrewdly called ‘the artillery of thought’, and which Luther hailed as God’s ultimate gift for advancing the Gospel—printing that changed Europe’s fate and, especially over the last two centuries, has governed opinion through book, pamphlet and newspaper; printing that, since 1436, has ruled our minds so despotically—seems to me threatened with death by the various sound recorders recently discovered and steadily improved.

“Despite enormous progress in press technology, despite simple-to-run typesetting machines casting fresh characters in movable moulds, I think the art at which Fust, Schöffer, the Estiennes, Vascosan, Aldus Manutius and Nicolas Jenson excelled has reached its peak. Our great-grandchildren will no longer entrust their works to this rather antiquated process, readily replaced by phonography—still in its infancy.”

A storm of exclamations erupted: astonished ohs, ironic ahs, sceptical ehs and furious denials—“Impossible! What do you mean?”—and I had some difficulty regaining the floor to explain myself.

“Bear in mind, impetuous listeners, that the ideas I am about to lay out are anything but settled; I serve them up as they come, paradoxical in appearance—but few things hold more truth than paradox, and many wild prophecies of eighteenth-century philosophers have already partly come true.

“I start from the undeniable observation that the man of leisure rejects exertion more every day, avidly seeking what he calls comfort—every chance to spare his organs. You will agree that reading, as we practise it, soon induces fatigue: it demands from our brains sustained attention burning up cerebral phosphates, while it bends our bodies into tiring postures. If we read a broadsheet such as the Times, we must artfully flip and fold its pages; if we hold it wide open, we strain our extensor muscles; with books, the need to cut leaves and turn them one after another produces, through tiny repeated jolts, a most unsettling nervous irritation over time.

“Yet the art of imbibing another’s spirit, wit and ideas calls for greater passivity. In conversation our brain keeps more elasticity, clarity and repose, for words arriving through the auditory canal set our cortical cells vibrating in a way known to excite our own thoughts—an effect observed by all physiologists, past and present.

“I therefore believe in the success of whatever flatters and nurtures human laziness and egoism. The lift has killed staircase climbs; the phonograph will probably destroy printing. Our eyes are made to behold nature’s beauties, not to be worn out reading text. We have abused them too long; one need not be an ophthalmologist to know the ailments plaguing our vision and forcing us to borrow optical science’s artifices.

“Our ears, by contrast, are less overworked: they open to life’s sounds, yet our eardrums suffer less irritation. I like to imagine we shall soon feel the need to relieve our eyes by taxing our ears instead—an equitable redistribution in our bodily economy.”

“Very well, very well!” my attentive comrades cried. “But the practical details, dear friend—we await you there. How do you picture phonographs both portable and sturdy enough to record, without breaking down, long novels that now fill four or five hundred pages? On what hardened-wax cylinders will you print newspaper articles? And with what batteries will you power the electric motors of these future phonographs? The whole thing seems far from easy.”

“All this, nevertheless, will be done,” I resumed. “There will be recording cylinders light as celluloid pens, holding five or six hundred words, spinning on slender axles that fit in a pocket. Every nuance of the voice will be reproduced. We shall perfect the devices as we perfect the tiniest jewelled watches. As for electricity, people will often carry it within themselves—each person will easily power pocket, neck-strap or shoulder-slung appliances with their own fluid current, ingeniously captured and channelled, all enclosed in a simple tube like an opera glass-case.

“As for the book—or rather, for by then books will have perished, the novel or story-graph—the author will become his own publisher to thwart imitation and piracy. He will first go to the Patent Office to deposit his voice, signing its low and high notes, giving counter-readings to secure duplicates. Once that formality is settled, the author will speak his work onto recording rolls and market his patent cylinders himself, sealed for the listener’s consumption.

“Writers will no longer be called écrivains but narrators. The taste for ornate phrasing will fade; the art of delivery will grow unbelievably important. Some narrators will be highly sought-after for their skill, contagious warmth, vibrant timbre and perfect diction.

“Ladies will no longer sigh, ‘I adore his way of writing.’ They will swoon: ‘Oh, that diseur [master reciter]—his voice penetrates, enchants, moves; his deep tones are divine, his cries of passion heart-rending! One emerges shattered after hearing him—an incomparable ravisher of the ear.’”

My friend James Wittmore broke in: “And libraries—what of them, my dear lover of books?”

“Libraries will become phonographothèques—or perhaps clichéothèques,” I replied. “On tiered shelves of tiny drawers they will hold neatly labelled cylinders containing the works of humanity’s geniuses. The editions in demand will be those auto-phonographed by fashionable performers: people will fight over Coquelin’s Molière, Irving’s Shakespeare, Salvini’s Dante, Eleonora Duse’s Dumas fils, Mounet-Sully’s Hugo, while Goethe, Milton, Byron, Dickens, Emerson, Tennyson, Musset and others will have been vibrated onto cylinders by choice diseurs.

“Bibliophiles—now phonographophiles—will still cherish rare items, casing their cylinders in morocco tubes tooled with gold and symbolic motifs. Titles will run round the box-rim; the rarest pieces will be unique recordings of a master’s voice or variants of a famous work previously unheard.

“Merry-spirited narrators will render everyday comic life, reproducing the noises that accompany and sometimes mock conversations—nature’s own orchestration—capturing crowd outbursts, dialects and foreign jargons: Marseille or Auvergne patter to amuse Parisians, just as Irish or Western drawls tickle East-coast Americans. Authors lacking vocal harmony will hire phonists or clamists—actors or singers—to store their work on accommodating cylinders, much as today we employ secretaries and copyists.

“Listeners will no longer regret the time when they were mere readers: rested eyes, refreshed faces, blissful ease will attest to the benefits of a contemplative life. Stretched on sofas or rocked in armchairs, they will silently relish marvellous adventures piped into curious ears through flexible tubes. At home or on foot through the Alps or the Colorado canyons, happy listeners will unite hygiene and instruction, exercising their muscles while feeding their minds thanks to pocket phono-operagraphs useful during excursions.

“‘Your dream is very aristocratic,’ insinuated the humanitarian Julius Pollok. ‘Surely the future will be more democratic. I should like, I confess, to see the common people better served.’

“‘They will be, my gentle poet,’ I cheerfully replied. ‘Nothing will be lacking: the people may drink literature as freely as spring water, for they will have street-corner literary dispensers just as they have fountains.

“At every crossroads small kiosks will rise, from which hang listening tubes for studious passers-by, each connected to a work started by pressing a single button. Elsewhere, automatic libraries—activated by dropping a penny—will vend Dickens, Dumas père or Longfellow on long rolls to play at home.

“I go further: the author who wishes personally to exploit his works—like the medieval trouvères—may hawk them door-to-door, earning a decent living by renting countless tubes to every tenant in a building, each tube leading from his shoulder-slung listening organ through open windows to ears seeking momentary leisure or solace. At four or five cents an hour, modest purses will not suffer, while the wandering author reaps sizeable royalties from multiple simultaneous auditions in one neighbourhood.

“Nor is that all. Future phonographism will attend our grandchildren in every circumstance. Every restaurant table will carry its repertoire of phonographed works; so will public vehicles, waiting rooms, ship cabins, hotel lobbies and bedrooms. Railways will swap parlour-cars for Pullman-style circulating libraries that make travellers forget the miles while still admiring passing scenery.

“I will not detail the technical workings of these new interpreters of human thought, these multipliers of speech, but rest assured: printed books will be abandoned worldwide, and printing will cease altogether—save for commerce and private correspondence, which, who knows, the vastly improved typewriter may fully meet.

“‘And the daily newspaper?’ you ask—the mighty press of England and America? Do not fear. It will follow the general path. Public curiosity will only grow: soon we shall no longer settle for printed interviews, however inaccurate, but want to hear the interviewee, to listen to the fashionable orator’s speech, to sample yesterday’s new song, to judge the fresh-debut diva’s voice.

“Who could deliver all that better than the future great phonographic newspaper?

“Voices from around the world will be centralised on celluloid rolls that the post will bring each morning to subscribers. Valets and maids will slot them onto the twin spindles of the motor device and deliver the news to master or mistress at wake-up: foreign telegrams, stock prices, whimsical essays, theatrical reviews—all may be heard while still dozing on a warm pillow.

“Journalism will naturally be transformed; top posts will go to vigorous young men with strong, well-timed voices whose art lies in pronunciation, not word choice or sentence form. Literary mandarinate will vanish; the learned will address only a tiny audience. The crucial point will be to convey facts swiftly in a few words, free of comment.

“All newspaper offices will feature vast speaking halls where editors record news aloud; telephone-borne dispatches will be instantly etched by a clever mechanism in the acoustic receiver. The resulting cylinders will be copied en masse and mailed before three a.m.—unless, through agreement with the telephone company, journal auditions are delivered to homes via subscribers’ private lines, as théâtrophone services already do.’”

William Blackcross, the amiable critic and aesthete who had so far let my fanciful chatter run, judged it time to interrogate me:

“‘Allow me to ask: how will you replace book illustration? Man, an eternal child, will always crave images, wishing to see what he imagines or is told.’

“‘Your objection does not dismay me,’ I replied. ‘Illustration will be abundant and realistic, able to satisfy the most demanding. Perhaps you have not heard tomorrow’s great discovery, soon to amaze us: Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph. I recently saw its first trials at Orange Park, during a visit to the great electrician in New Jersey.

“‘The kine-tograph will record human movement and reproduce it exactly, just as the phonograph records and plays the voice. Five or six years hence you will marvel at this wonder, based on composing gestures through instantaneous photography. The kinetograph will thus illustrate daily life. Not only will we see it run inside its box, but through a system of mirrors and reflectors, every animated figure it captures in photo-chromos can be projected in our homes on large white screens. The scenes of fictional works and adventure novels will be mimed by well-costumed extras and reproduced at once.

As a complement to the phonographic newspaper we shall also have each day’s illustrations—Slices of Active Life, as we now say—freshly cut from the news. We shall witness new plays, theatre and actors as easily as we already hear them at home; we shall have not merely portraits but the moving faces of famous men, criminals and pretty women. It will not be art, true, but it will at least be life itself—natural, unvarnished, sharp, precise, and often cruel.

“‘I repeat, my friends, that I offer only uncertain possibilities. Who among us, however subtle, can boast of prophesying wisely? Writers of this age,’ our dear Balzac already said, ‘are the labourers of a future hidden behind a curtain of lead.’ If Voltaire and Rousseau revisited today’s France, they would scarcely suspect the twelve years, 1789-1800, that were Napoleon’s swaddling-clothes.

“‘Plainly, then, my sketch of tomorrow’s intellectual life must contain unseen dark sides. Just as oculists multiplied after the invention of journalism, so, with future phonography, aurist doctors will proliferate; they will devise countless new ear ailments—more names than actual maladies. Yet no advance comes without displacing some of our woes. Medicine progresses little; it speculates on fashions and new ideas it later condemns once generations have died for love of novelty.

“‘In any case, to return to our subject, I believe that if books have a destiny, that destiny—now more than ever—is on the verge of fulfillment: the printed book is about to disappear. Do you not feel its excesses already condemn it? Après nous, la fin des livres! [After us, the end of books!].’”

This quip, meant to enliven our supper, met with some success among my indulgent listeners. The most sceptical admitted there might be truth in the instantaneous prophecy, and John Pool won a roar of laughter and approval when, at parting, he exclaimed:

“‘Either books must vanish or they will swallow us! I have calculated that worldwide some eighty to one hundred thousand works appear each year; at an average print-run of one thousand, that makes over one hundred million copies—most filled with wild extravagance and folly, spreading only prejudice and error. Our social condition obliges us daily to hear much nonsense; a little more, a little less will hardly add to our woes, but what bliss no longer to read it and at last to close our eyes to the nothingness of print!’”

Never has the Hamlet of our great Will better said: Words! Words! Words!—words that pass and will no longer be read.

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