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A Book in Hand Exceeds the Digital Ones in Many Aspects
The death knell for the physical book publishing biz sounded years ago and yet real, hardcover, and paperback books sales are still healthy. Why?
A book is a friend, a therapist, a creative muse, a means to perceive our life’s meaning, a journey into worlds only imagined, and it’s all done with paper and some form of typesetting or handwriting. Books are intrinsically valuable, viewed as intellectually stimulating, or dangerous to those who would keep us ignorant and oppressed.
Why else would there be book burnings or books removed from libraries and children’s access to classical tomes be denied? They make people think and realize disparate points of view or reveal historical facts they never knew existed. Next to intellectuals, books are dangerous.
There was one invention that made the impossible possible, the printing press. The press freed books from the clutches of the wealthy and brought news, literature, and science to the masses who embraced it all eagerly. Books are truly prized possessions. It didn’t hurt the financial potential of authors, either.
Books were and are the target of tyrants and often must be hidden. Think of those found (before the printing press) in the caves of Nag Hammadi or those carefully copied by the monks in Ireland.
