On New Year’s Eve, I got lost in Yonkers trying to take my son’s gently-used toys to the Salvation Army. The Yonkers store was the only one I could find willing to take them. The guy on the phone hesitated, “Are they in good condition?” he asked, clearly unhappy about my impending donation. I assured him they were, and he sighed and told me to come on over.
On principle, I try (really hard) to give away anything that is not completely worn out. But it is getting harder and harder to do. Nobody wants my old furniture or clothes or books. And they especially don’t want used children’s toys. My attempt to give them away was ill-fated. A police barricade stopped me at Nepperhan Avenue (a construction site disaster). Then I drove around for forty minutes until I found an alternate route but was twarted at Ashburton Ave (building on fire, streets blocked). I gave up and went home. With stomach full of guilt, I put the plastic toys in the dumpster. My son didn’t mind because he had a brand new pile of toys in his playroom, Christmas gifts from relatives and friends who couldn’t be dissuaded.
Point is, it seems increasingly difficult to opt out of the cycle of waste-creation. Plastic kids’ toys are just one example. I’m also guilty of consuming and transforming lots of other things into waste: clothes, computers, cell phones, magazines, all sorts of complicatedly-packaged food and beverage items, etc… So yesterday, when I contemplated how best to spend 2008, I decided to focus on figuring out how to create a more sustainable lifestyle. And since I work in book publishing, job one is to figure out what it means to create a sustainable book. Lots of models come to mind. Good ones like Wikipedia (device-neutral and always in the latest, free, edition) and bad ones like the Kindle, (which tries to create a market for an ebook reader with designed obsolescence).
Anyway, I thought it might be useful to weave the sustainability discussion into if:book’s ongoing consideration of networked ebooks, because at this stage in their developement, networked books could be shaped with sustainability in mind. So, I’m hoping to stir up some interesting discussion and serious contemplation of the perfectly sustainable book: one that is constantly revised, but never needs to be reprinted (or repurchased); one that is lean and simple and doesn’t require a small server farm or a special device; one that makes an enormous impact, but leaves a teeny tiny carbon footprint; one we can live with for ever and ever without getting bored or satiated.
Monthly Archives: January 2008
coming soon to a laptop near you
What makes me think 2008 will be a big year for the future of the book?
Last night in London we went to see the movie of The Golden Compass adapted from the excellent Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. Imagine my surprise when all three trailers shown were about films about books – not just film adaptations but movies in which the book itself stars.
Number one: Inkheart. “Maggie and her father had a special gift when it came to reading stories… but there’s one book they should never have read… ” It’s based on the novels of Cornelia Funke.
Number two: Spiderwick, based on books by artist Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black. ‘Their World is Closer Than You Think’.
A child reads: ‘Do not dare to read this book for if you do but take a look…”
The trailer ends with an evil monster growling, “Give me the book!”
And finally, for the adults, Nicholas Cage in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Quotes from the trailer: “I need to see the page – there’s a symbol… it’s the
President’s secret book, it contains all the conspiracies…The book exists!”
it’s the Search for the Code of the Bride of Harry Potter & Da Vinci.
Meanwhile I loved The Golden Compass, which has been less compromised by Hollywood e than I’d feared. When the movie was launched I was horrified to hear a radio debate in New York about the dangers of Pullman’s philosophy contaminating innocent children – nobody voiced the view that kids deserved more atheist messages not less.
But I thought the least successful element was the tricksy way they showed the all knowing althiometer at work: swirling dust revealing fuzzy orange images. Only in text can you convincingly describe what it would feel like to know the future.
Will this fascination with the secret world of reading lead to increased sales for conventional tomes or is this the beginning of the final battle between page and screen?! And will it lead to more interest in new ways of mixing literature and image to make networked works of staggering genius?
This Spring experience: IFBOOK! ‘It’s a novel, Bob..but not as we know it.’
Happy New Year