To bind or not to bind
Jeanette Winterson considers the future of the book in a piece for The Times. Inspired by a visit to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to see the St John’s Bible, the first handwritten illuminated manuscript created in Britain in the last 500 years, Winterson posits a number of future scenarios for the book as we know it, including its relegation to the status of handcrafted art object. But even with all the competition from high-tech gadgets and information providers, Winterson does not forsee an end to the traditional book. What we may see happen, she speculates, is the transfer of certain book categories onto purely digital technology platforms, including the ubiquitous celebrity bio. “People who don’t really read don’t really need books,” Winterson writes, “so let them have Jordan and Beckham in lots of other ways. Audio, animated-audio, that is, audio with pictures — is just about right for most celebrity publications.”
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Read Jeanette Winterson’s piece in The Times
