Feature The Book


Houston make of its future? Is the massive democra- tisation of information enabled by digital technology akin to the broadening effect of Johannes Gutenberg’s implementation of movable tpe, or the advances in printing and distribution of the Industrial Revolution? “Printing and e-book publishing certainly have their similarities in terms of how they disrupted the status quo,” he says. “However, I’d argue that the open web was the real game-changer. E-books are mostly just facsimiles of physical books, still bound by constraints that don’t have to exist in the digital world, whereas the web continues to evolve in leaps and bounds. I’d argue, too, that blogs, Twiter and the like were far more important in democ- ratising the distribution of information than e-books. A more apt parallel between printing and e-books might be the change from scrolls to codices. In his scrolls, Martial, the ancient Roman poet, exhorted readers to buy his works a second time in the new paged format... That’s what it feels like when I buy the electronic version of a paper book I already own.”


I don’t perceive there being many problems with physical book layout, but then I calibrate my expectations according to the type of book I’m reading. I don’t expect a cheap paperback to have a stellar layout


Physical books will endure, he believes. “We’ll appre-


millenia to trace the development of its form, format and function. The history of paper, printing and image reproduction are all explored. What does the author make of the modern book? “I don’t perceive there being many problems with physical book layout, but then I calibrate my expectations according to the tpe of book I’m reading. I don’t expect a cheap paperback to have stellar layout, but an expensive hardback is a different mater.


“E-books, though, are oſten terrible. I’m amazed at how easy it seems to be to create a sub-par electronic book. I’m guessing that many of them are tpeset auto- matically, without a human in the loop,” he adds. Suffice to say tpeseting is an exercise oſten neglected by most mass-market titles. This is odd, considering a reader’s experience is largely framed through consumption of its words. Surely, easing readabilit should be paramount?


The future book The long gestation period of the physical book has enabled it to evolve into a more mature, assured form than its nascent digital sibling, Houston believes. Having researched the history of the book, what does


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ciate those that have been well designed or lovingly printed as much as we ever have,” he says. However, he is less positive about pixel-based publishing. “We need to develop different critical faculties when we’re evaluating [books’] electronic counterparts,” he says. For instance, Houston argues that “PDF magazines and Kindle-stle e-books are throwbacks. They don’t need to be strictly linear, or to have a fixed visual representation, or to be constrained to this platform or that platform. They’re almost like the ghosts of books rather than books them- selves—echoes from a different medium.”


New parameters Yet a new form, per se, of reading experience is begin- ning to emerge from electronic media, he believes—one that is ripe with possibilities. Considering the printed book took aeons to gravitate to its present state, the genesis of digital publishing, comparably, has been posi- tively breakneck. “The speed at which the web is chang- ing does give me some hope,” Houston says. “Penguin, for example, publishes its new Pelican books on the web rather than as ePubs or Kindle books, and they look miles beter than your average e-book. New publications such as The Outline show how touchscreens can be used for more intuitive navigation. Newspapers are experi- menting with big, bold, animated feature stories. “All of this is good, all of it goes to show what makes an electronic document feel rich or well craſted is not the same as what makes a physical book feel the same way.” ×


Keith Houston is a writer of medical imaging software for Blackford Analysis, who began writing about punctuation at the urging of a friend. The book was the seed of his previous title, Shady Characters (Penguin)


2,724


copies sold through Nielsen Bookscan UK since publication, for a value of £36,339


1,169


copies sold through Nielsen Bookscan UK since publication, for a value of £20,700


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