books without borders

borders bookstore announced today that they will indefinitely sell their remaining assets, lay off 11,000 employees and close their last 399stores. some say, they simply bought too much high priced real estate that they couldn't unload when necessary, but most believe the ebook (and their late arrival to the ebook game) is to blame for the implosion of borders books. it's the advancement of that 'e' that has continued to ruin print that for centuries was sure to stand the test of time. newspapers and magazines continue to see a steady decline in circulation since today one can generally find all their news online and with the addition of the ebook, bookstores, small+large, used+new are beginning to see it too.

proprietors of the kindle, the ipad, the nook and the ebook argue that its better for the environment than traditional books containing pages made from paper. "paper comes from trees, ya know, we saving trees." (a direct quote from a kindle user during a discussion about real books versus ebooks.) another user told me they liked how small and compact it is... "it's easy to carry around," she said. "it's the size of a book, huh?" i said. "yeah, but now i don't have to have shelves of books cluttering up my house."... i stand dumbfounded. cluttering up shelves? if that's how you perceive books, then lady, i think you're missing the point.

i personally can't stand the idea of ebooks. in fact, they scare the hell outta me. take a look at this image from newsweek magazine a year ago (pay close attention to the carbon emissions of each).

a year later, the ebook has a much stronger hold on its market and is beginning to strangle the competition. while ebooks hold a mere 9per cent of the market, ebook sales climbed 164per cent last year and are downloaded more than any other media, second only to mp3s. so as ebooks continue to take a hold of the market, will we eventually loose bookstores all together? or will the ones that survive be like those we find in terminal c of the airport; big authors, big titles and less and less abstract, unconventional, enlightening works? would ebooks, then, force the production of more cookie-cutter novels, formulamatic+predictable, designed to sell? and if there are no book stores, would libraries slowly dissipate too? would future generations have to look at books from behind museum glass? would they even know what bound pages feel like to their fingers? and perhaps most importantly to me, if all books are digital, would some works deemed "controversial" begin to simply disappear; lost deep in the digital nether regions of the data/space continuum, forever hidden from us by the incalculable number of packets+pages strung together to make up the already blinding world wide web? would those of us with those books eventually become fugitives? could bradbury's vision be coming true? will we one day hide his farenheit 451 beneath the floorboards beside the words of orwell and huxley, and have to fight to protect them?

i can't understand why people are in such a hurry to go digital. what's so wrong with analog anyway? i love the feel of holding an analog book, flipping the pages, reading the print. i love how when i read a book i love, i can share it with those i love by simply passing it along. no upload. no download. no streaming. actually hand delivering it in an attempt to keep what little human interaction we do have strong. spreading art for art's sake. i continue to acquire books when i can, and it was pointed out to me how i don't even get around to reading them - though i will. and i feel while i do need to read those works that increasing my personal library, cluttering my shelves (in a manner of speaking), is never a bad thing and will continue to do so. when books are all digital and we have our first digital apocalypse, i'll still have my collection and will read them, share them and protect them.