The Ex-Libris Factor

The world of books, and of reading, is in turmoil. Libraries are shutting, bookshops are struggling, and everyone’s talking up the e-reader as being ’2010′s iPod’. Competing models vie and hustle for our attention – although none offer the simple pleasure of sharing a book with a friend, as they all feature nasty DRM protection, and none offer any sensory delights other than the words on the screen.

You can’t run your fingers down the spine of a Sony. You can’t sniff the ink of a Kindle. You can’t gently finger the leaves of a Plastic Logic. And, frankly, I’ll not shed a tear if my new William Trevor hardback doesn’t come with WiFi.

Still. Maybe we’re all being a little hasty here. None of these £200+ devices  are the best way of enjoying the books that we all seem to be lapping up these days.

Take exhibit A: in Waterstones’ Liverpool ONE window – JLS, Our Story So Far. X-Factor rejects tell all in Harper Collins’ latest tree-slaughtering abuse. Somehow, I don’t see that translating too well to Sony’s crisp electronic screen. Nor Paul McKenna’s ‘I Can Make You Poorer’, or Gryff Rhys Jones’ ‘Up a Creek without a Career’, or ‘The Little Book of Crap’ stocking-fillers that’ll be crowding out the tables come Christmas (or, probably, late September).

So, for some considerable time, we’ll still have printed books. But, mostly, they’re for in-store signings. And for their pictures. And, oh, if you must, the words. The JLS boys are in town soon, to sign copies of their biography. Probably not written by them (Waterstones is owned by HMV – wouldn’t that have been a better location?). Still, who writes their own books these days? Jordan? Jamie? Gerrard?

Jamie In Your Face

Waterstones’ windows are a tie-in treasure trove – obsessed with fame, celebrity, telly and trash. But, to be fair, it’s a pretty good description of what lies within, too. Take their other heavily promoted title: John Barrowman’s ‘I Am What I Am’ (Written with John’s trademark style, the book will be filled with juicy titbits, heart-warming family anecdotes and personal revelations, including John’s perspective on fame and how it has affected him). Damn those blurbs, I simply can’t resist John’s ‘trademark style’ and I’ve been longing for his juicy titbits for way too long. Yeah, they got me.

The store’s profits are down, again, as increasing numbers of us turn to the long tail of Amazon and the like. And, while they try to figure out what it is they should be doing (has anyone noticed how much floor space they give to computer games on the ground floor? What’s that about?) our libraries are in a similar state of confusion.

Camera Obscura. Quiet is the new loud.

Get this: over the next couple of months, the Get It Loud In Libraries project is staging a number of gigs around Lancashire which puts Korova to shame. Skelmersdale hosts a performance by ace Swedish studio boffins, Miike Snow, Preston sees The New Pornographers’ Neko Case bring her new country shtick to the Central Library, while Morecambe welcomes twee Scots Camera Obscura. Even Liverpool’s allowed Yvette Fielding and crew to scream around the Picton, and claim poltergeist activity when they knocked over a shelf of Dickens first editions. Must try that one sometime.

It’s all a far cry from the world of hushed learning, and rapt page-turning. And, I guess, the Libraries are at least injecting some life into the dusty halls (which, alas, Wirral’s Library Service has been disallowed from trying), but it all seems a bit desperate to me.

Anyway, after watching 84 Charing Cross Road the other day, and spending the morning browsing the second hand bookshops of the Wirral, I think I’ll just settle down with this pile of mouldy old H V Mortons. And, no, not the tie-in from that TV series where the fella from One Foot in the Grave retraces his steps.

I know, I know, it’ll be ages before Oxton’s Village Books get a copy of the JLS book in, but, really, I can wait.  And I’d prefer to see Neko Case in Korova, sorry Preston.