“Blessings upon Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books,” wrote philosopher Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle, for all practical purposes, hadn’t foreseen the advent of electronic publishing, or the possibility of something as smart as the electronic book—in his wildest of dreams—the jazzy cultural, or philosophical, touchstone. The printed word, on paper, was too sacred a proposition for someone like him, like most of us—especially, committed book lovers. It still is—no matter the changing graph in one’s perceptions today, thanks to our singular love for the magical chip and all its wondrous uses.
Whatever one’s understanding of high-tech publishing, it goes without saying that all of it originated from the humblest of beginnings—a pioneer called Johannes Gutenberg, and his first printing press. A simple, but profound process—one that is now too deeply entrenched in our psyche. Of the smell of paper, the ink, and that great, elemental feeling of a published work in hand. It still holds magic—one that enraptures us, even if we don’t really read books as much as we did before. Blame it too on our own overwhelmingly well-orchestrated preoccupations, the pressures of modern living, or the supremacy of television and the Internet—and, you have a plethora of abstractions as to why the reading habit is increasingly being undermined by sleek intrusions.
Not Hype. Reality
In reality, however, things are not as bad as you’d think. Printed books are being published—in millions. People still read them for a host of reasons. And, what’s more, you’ve bestsellers, not in their dozens, but in any number, rolling out of the press practically every day, interspersed with several awards and honours—including the Nobel, or Booker, among others. They are all books in a profusion of genres—from fiction, non-fiction etc., to the so-called ‘barometer’ that measures your pristine intellect and acumen. It is something that you ought to have in your résumé—New-Age wisdom, or the back-to-the-future sort of conscious feeling and the web of life itself. It’s a pre-requisite for success—a celebration of a whole, new world of spiritual materialism.
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