I was recently asked to contribute to the Powells Books (Powells.com) website as a guest blogger for the week of Monday, October 19 through Friday the 23rd. I was quite pleased to do it. The idea of a new audience of potential readers at this moment when my first novel is just out was a great opportunity.

But then there were choices to make. Should I pick a different subject each day or carry a theme. Should I be light or jump headfirst into those darker thoughts that plague me.

In the end I chose to write on a single theme, the death of the book, but avoid my worst nightmares for the sake of some degree of polite conversation. After it was done, I thought it came out fairly well. No loud ranting. No dead bodies.

Powell’s has kindly given me permission to repost my entries here and I have decided to put them all up at once in consecutive order.

1. The Death of the Book Is Not Exaggerated

Because I write this from Indianapolis, where I have been attending this year’s Bouchercon (the world crime and mystery fiction convention) I will begin with a bit of argument I usually save for later in my general thesis concerning the death of the book…

Sadly, most of the people attending looked like me–old and white…Okay, older, but still white. And though I know many younger readers of the mystery genre, they are the minority, and they are still white. Sitting in the audience and looking over the gray hair toward the podium where many fine authors were expounding on wonderful aspects of a genre which has been special to me since I was a teenager aspiring to be a writer myself, I could not help but be aware of the mortality of so many of these folks so devoted to their field they are willing to spend hundreds of dollars during a recession just to attend a gathering of fellow mystery lovers in this fine city with at least one great eating establishment (the Rock Bottom Brew Pub. I recommend the hickory burger and the house brown ale).

Understand, it is not their fault that they are either old, or older (I’m 62) or white. They were born that way. The problem is this: when they are gone, what then? When a new generation is raised on libraries without books, and instant news gratification, and text which is so fungible it leaks before your eyes, what then? And all this, when many cultures, not only elsewhere on this small earth, but right here in Indianapolis, have not yet even established the traditions of respect for the printed word which propelled Western culture for five centuries.

And this feeds into my greater worry–the cause which made me choose to write this series of mysteries in the first place. The book may not yet be dead, but it is mortally wounded. I have been preaching this line to deaf ears for years. The new technologies, others say, will not replace the book, but will only share the space, and enlarge it for all. Sure. Like the automobile did for the horse-drawn carriage. No. Not like that. More like the Cro-Magnon replaced the Neanderthal.

My thesis is that any such comparison does not apply. Before Gutenberg’s book, only a small elite could read–was permitted to read–and text was so expensive only the wealthy could afford the pleasure. A scare-house Halloween mirror version of this is what I fear most. After the book is gone, everyone will be able to read, but what they read and how they read will be determined by a few. A faceless few. An anonymous bureaucratic few.

I chose to write a mystery not to write a polemic about the death of the book (all part of the death of the bookshop, and the newspaper, etc), but to make a point of the mortality of this love I have for something mankind has done right amidst all the things we have gotten wrong. The book is a holy thing to me, and reading a pleasure and a gift I wish on everyone.

I have been a publisher and an editor of books and magazines. I once participated in the actual printing of a small school journal from movable type on a letterpress. I have designed pages and pasted them up. I have developed the advertising and marketing of publications. I have been a book rep traveling from city to city. And I have been a bookseller–this is the way I have earned my living for over thirty years. Now, I am a writer of a book, with others written and waiting their turn.

Not coincidentally, I chose as protagonist a ‘book hound’ whose devotion to books has afforded him a refuge and a living, whose comfort is shattered by the murder of woman–a friend and a former lover, but someone he is not sure he loved. This doubt, and the fact that he himself is both a suspect and a witness, compels him to find the cause of her death. Once shaken, he is awakened and can no longer sleep. Not to make too much of the metaphor, this is in kind with the death of the book itself. We take it for granted and assume that its blessings can be moved to a digital being. It won’t be. This wonderful device on which I write now and the magic software that makes it possible, is more fragile than any but a few are willing to recognize.

I don’t fear the Kindle or the Sony Reader, or the iPod, or any new device. They are wonderful in their own right. But we cannot let them replace the book.

There are many other worries attached to this, of course. I have been talking about this for long enough to make a few books out of it, at the very least. I will touch on a few over the next few days as I recover from my first ever convention.

2. A Practical Matter

Exaggeration is not necessary.

It was in a letter of 1897 about his cousin James Ross Clemens, that Mark Twain famously noted “the report of my death was an exaggeration.” He managed to hang on, despite his critics, for another thirteen years. Times were slower then. I suspect that the death of the book will occur more rapidly, though the small corpses will be with us for a bit longer.

What is poorly understood here is actually a very practical matter. We have lost the steel industry in America, once the largest such in the world by far, in less than forty years. That took place for very practical reasons. But if you had said such a thing was possible in 1960, you would have been looked at as a fool. And General Motors is too big to fail…right? It may not be as visible from 30,000 feet but a car trip through Detroit, or Buffalo, or any of a hundred great American industrial cities will tell you how quickly things can change.

The printing industry is just that, an industry, though miniscule by comparison to the making of steel. And this goes for publishing as well. Is there any reason for the center of publishing to remain in New York—one of the most expensive places a poor author must visit? Not now. Not in the age of the internet.

Even with a still small and captured market, the downloading of books onto Kindles and the like is already a half-priced convenience. But what will it be like in a few years. Even the machine that is a ‘reader’ will be made somewhere far far away from New York.

In an age of digital ease and the reduced ‘cost’ of those ephemeral 0’s and 1’s, can you think of a compelling reason why ‘publishers’ will promote the work of ‘authors’ who ask for too much? The need will be for product. The publicity and marketing departments have long ago assumed control of the editorial reasoning for what will be acceptable at the larger publishing houses.

Those same publishers who dominate what you can find at Walmart and Costco, (or any of the other ‘convenience’ stores that make the existence of independent book stores a daily struggle) are not in business to lose money. And like the pulp authors of the 1920’s and thirties, working in a medium which had then used technology to reduce the cost of publishing to a bare minimum, the price per word will fall even for the most popular authors. Can you tell me why those same publishers will want to keep alive a ‘format’ which they consider too expensive and too difficult to distribute relative to a nearly instant electronic impulse?

I cannot.

But I know this. That what happens to the reader engaged by the artful nuance of typography on a paper page while exploring the imagination of a single writer is not the same as the collision of visual information offered by the illusions on a digital screen.

I know this, that reading a book is an experience of human scale, not only proportioned to the hand but to the mind. It was made that way by the genius of Aldus Manutius and Wynkyn de Worde and tens of thousands of artisans and artists, writers and even editors (yes, even editors) who came after them.

And I know this. That if I find the original edition of a book, that it is at least what the author meant it to be, or nearly so in that contest between an author’s accepting payment and the need to pay for a meal or a bed. What you find on the screen is only what is convenient.

And this: those 3 ½ inch floppies you kept all that poetry on which you wrote in college won’t work on that lap top you bought last week. And what you have on that flash drive you carry on a string around your neck will be an artifact as useful as the tooth your ancestor once wore the same way.

You must understand this: everything we know as a civilization, good and bad, will soon be an ‘Aleph’ that even Borges could not imagine. And it can and will be lost in an instant.

It will be a practical matter.

3. Omnium Gatherum

In the October 17th issue of the Wall Street Journal there was a provocative piece concerning the new Kindle 2, by Stephen Marche who often writes for Esquire. In essence he accepts the revolutionary potential of the Kindle and proposes a new word, the ‘transbook,’ to describe the device and its cousins. I find the more humorous intonations of an ‘Omnium Gatherum’ to be appropriate. I suspect his optimism and suggest he has his historical facts out of order and incomplete.

Mr. Marche happily describes the moment in history when the ‘Kindle’ of another age was introduced: the codex. This wonderful device replaced the scroll–a single roll of paper–with what was essentially a bound volume of scrolls and was in fact the first true book, bringing to an end the tattered isolation of specific and shorter hand-written texts. This was revolutionary, indeed. What he fails to mention is that this was the very device which was used by authority to do away with the anarchy of the individual scroll, which might be produced by just any apostate who could write, and created the opportunity for organized sanction and approval (as well as improvement) of texts. The books of the Bible were thus codified by imprimatur. Heresy could thus be stamped out. It made the Pelagians among us very unhappy.

This was, in fact, the great and profound change that brought about the ‘dark ages.’ The authority of the Catholic Church was supreme and all dissent had to take place within the confines of its rule.

Mr. Marche recalls the monk Johannes Trithemius as a Benedictine scholar of the sixteenth century who opposed the printing press. He even compares him to our contemporary Nicholson Baker and that author’s recent rants against the Kindle and its kin. But Mr. Baker’s argument is more than just ‘the feel of the paper.’ Mr. Baker is a free man in a relatively open society who is worried over the further diminishment of his world, not its enlargement. And Trithemius was an occultist who recognized in the printing press the end of a more secretive society. His proto-Hogwarts School was an effort not only to garner knowledge but also to control it.

Mr. Marche then bemoans the heavy personal burden of accumulating individual volumes and the convenience of having 1500 titles in one relatively small device. He suggests a future where the ‘transbook’ will provide access to “all text that is non-copyright, and to the purchase of every book in and out of ‘print’” He says, “its about what the book wants to be.” It seems to me that this is the language of the true occultist, giving anthropomorphic power to a machine.

The reality is that the ‘transbook’ will be the tool of particular interests, and with particular interests. The industry that currently produces the book will fade away, at first slowly, but then at a quickening pace, as its economic underpinning are kicked away. The cost of a single printed book will rise. The convenience of downloading text will overcome reservations. Copyrights will be re-written to serve the new paradigm. And texts which do not meet the approved standards of language, or political purpose, will be neglected and unavailable.

This condition already exists to a lesser degree. First amendment protections are already being restricted for literature not in ‘book’ form. ‘Hate speech’ is proscribed and defined by standards which suit the political interest of the moment. Criticism of certain religious faiths is outlawed as ‘bigotry’. Specific words are forbidden and removed from texts. For those who agree with a given prejudice being exorcised, all is well. But the open society suffers. The great Nat Hentoff has been warning us about this for decades.

How is it that we are to avoid this bowdlerizing castration of our literature when all text is under the immediate electronic thumb of ‘authority.’

In How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman the marvelous reach of the law of unintended consequences was described. The poorest country in Europe in the Seventeenth Century was torn by the Presbyterian reformation of John Knox. In the fervor of their beliefs, the Kirk fathers wanted every man, woman, and child to learn to read and thus have direct access to the word of God. Overlooked was a related consequence, having learned to read, every man, woman, and child would be able to read anything they chose. Within a hundred years Scotland was the richest country in Europe, and the home of thinkers who had spawned a revolution in America and were creating the industrial revolution in Britain. Could this great awakening work now in reverse as all books are contained in a single dispenser?

Never mind the impermanence of costly devices which will be outmoded within a few years, or the restrictions of software intended to meet restrictive purposes. I would have far more confidence in the future of the e-book if it were guaranteed the same freedom of the press as the printed book. Sadly, political forces are already active on the behalf of special interests. The new money is on the Kindle, and this too leaves me in doubt.

4. Apple picking

And then we have the op-ed by Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, in the October 9th New York Times, which praised and defended the concept of Google Books—essentially the planned digital access to all the world’s literature. I recommend anyone interested in the subject of books, copyrights, and the integrity of text to read it.

I read his comments with horror and began immediately to write an essay on the subject for my own website. Sadly, I would wager that at the very least, nine out of ten people who read Mr. Brin’s editorial will think that his efforts are for the good and offer a whole new future for the written word.

A few weeks ago I stood in a grassy field where I had been picking apples while a major book illustrator paged through his portfolio of dozens of successfully published covers and hundreds of projects. His portfolio was in his hand on a device made by Apple. He also had the text of the books he had illustrated there as well, and numerous reference works he had made use of.

How could I not be impressed by this wizardry held in the palm of a hand? Well, let’s see…Perhaps I should highlight a few things Mr. Brin said in his article.

After mentioning Cornelius Walford’s account of the destruction of great libraries through the centuries, he said, “I hope such destruction never happens again.” Ironically, and I believe unintentionally, Mr. Brin’s previous and current efforts are part of the actual destruction of millions of books right now. Today. This minute. Libraries from coast to coast are ridding themselves of their troublesome books and replacing them with machines and software. The good intentions aside, all of that machinery and software will be obsolete within ten years. I know that as an historical fact. I cannot now access things I wrote on my Mac ten years ago.

Additionally, one might ask, what is the software platform which will be mandated to access Google’s efforts? But that would be picky and perhaps offensive to the software engineers at Microsoft.

And, given the rights to the world’s literature, will Google be writing off the enormous cost of their effort and giving equal access to all other search engines? Not likely. Mr. Brin even says as much while suggesting that by leading the way, Google will be making it easier for others to follow. I suppose,.. if you have a spare billion to spend.

Mr. Brin refers to “a vanishing number of libraries and used book stores” as a ‘black hole.’

Funny, I never noticed I was in a black hole all those years of my life spent at Avenue Victor Hugo Books, my small shop.

Mr. Brin does not even attempt to touch on the greater issues. Who will choose the works to be available? China, for instance, has already made it clear they will not permit access to what they do not like. Access is limited in all Arabic speaking countries. Who will oversee the texts? How will you know what you see is what the author wrote? Where will you go to check the text?

And something more, as alluded to here in a previous posting: is reading a Kindle the same as reading a book? Does the mind approach the electronic page with the same sensibilities? I can answer that by way of a personal note. I have arthritis in two fingers (having been a two-finger typist from childhood). I can no longer use a mechanical typewriter, despite my fondness for the machines themselves. More importantly though, I can say without doubt the way I write has been dramatically altered. I even think differently about the way I construct a sentence. Simply put, the ease of choice made in the instant as one writes has altered the way a writer crafts his work.

I don’t wish to be totally negative at this moment of small triumph for myself. I have beside me my own first book! But these larger matters have already affected my life, and they will be with us for all the years of my children, and their children.

Every age encompasses the end of another and the seeds of the next. That is exactly what my novel HOUND is about. It is most importantly about a final moment in human history, but it is also asking what is to come after. The old world, in all its aspects, has been my life. But Henry Sullivan, my protagonist, is younger than I am and thus is straddling that cusp. This story and those which follow are about a book hound, a man who finds good books–as I see him in my mind, a sort of knight errant and this series of mysteries as his sallying forth to do battle on behalf of the things he loves.

I am not Henry Sullivan. He is far smarter and braver than I have ever been. His worse limitation is that he only knows what I know. Thus he has quite a task ahead. He must first come to understand the threat his world faces. Then he must find out why. And then he must do something about it.

Understanding the threat that Mr. Brin poses to the life of the book is obvious. What can be done about it is not. Certainly technology will move in the direction of demand. The usefulness of the Apple iPod is just as obvious, and the demand is terrific. Finding a viable place for the book in a world of instant amusement will be difficult. But that is my purpose.

Now I have a book of my own. And if I can entertain a few more readers for a little while longer and thereby keep my world alive, I will be very pleased with what I’ve done. But I will not be satisfied with that.

5. Truth and Consequences

The challenge of making my case in these five short blogs is magnified for me because I am both a slow talker and thinker. I tend to work toward my thoughts in an ‘organic’ manner. That’s probably why I chose the form of the novel for expression. I am not easily seduced by sound bites.

The first line of my novel, HOUND was hidden until my editor pointed out the old newspaper adage that I was burying my lead. Yet it was that first line that had spawned the whole book and had always been the nucleus of the way I was going to approach my larger subject.

Books are, after all, the way I make my living.

It is a matter of our age that most of us refuse to deal with unpleasantness until we are forced to. There are so many alternatives. Buy a new one. Eat out. Watch TV. Download it…A significant number of my fellow citizen live their lives between a pair of headphones. It’s damn hard to hear the screaming that way.

We have thrown off the clothes of tradition and taken up the amusements of our age. Neal Postman warned about the consequences of this in Amusing Ourselves to Death, many years ago.

I was not surprised in the 1990’s to discover that my worries over the death of the book were dismissed out of hand by most people. What occurred to me then was that the whole process of recognition would be either organic or catastrophic. Nothing in-between. Now that the dying has begun, what I hear is denial. It won’t be so bad. You won’t feel a thing.

Telling people over and again that the levees are inadequate, that money to fix them is being misspent on other things, and that history has predicted a direct hit by another hurricane in the foreseeable future, is not enough, though homes and lives and the life’s work of hundreds of thousands are at risk. Afterward there will be many to blame. But there will be very few who admit, “I knew, but I did nothing.”

It is your right to go in a candy shop and spend all your pay on sweets. It is your right to put the work of your life on a flash drive. I am not asking for or wanting any government to tell you or me how to live our lives. What I am wanting is for as many people as possible to take responsibility for themselves and what they do. I don’t want my children to bear the consequences of a society which has lost its head. Go ahead, buy the candy if that’s important to you. But please don’t turn then to your government to correct your health problems because that cost will then fall on me and mine and I do not deserve the burden. I am certain I have made enough mistakes all my own to bear.

Dependency on the convenience of the internet is not a good thing. Yes, it will be a wondrous good to have all of the world’s fine literature (and the trash too) at your fingertips as Google wishes. But if you stop making choices—if you stop buying the actual book which represents your own judgment about what is fine, there will be no true arbiter of taste. There will be no true arbiter of value to separate the fine from the trash.

The book must share space in the rooms of our lives. We must make that judgment in numbers sufficient to keep the book alive and viable as an art form, and a business, with all the craft and industry behind it. What I fear at first is neglect. No one wants to do harm. But later, when the cost of the book has risen too far above the expense of the simple download, all that will be left is the kind of ‘print-on-demand’ that will homogenize and pasteurize every nuance of the arts and crafts of publishing. And with them will inevitably go content.

Already typography and binding have suffered.

I haven’t the scientific background to instruct others on the fragile nature of the internet, but I fully comprehend the consequences of what I have read and been told by those who do. For instance, the effect of a single electromagnetic pulse weapon above New York would end most modern communication in America.

I could ask, “How are your letter writing skills? Penmanship anyone? And is the Post Office up to the challenge of physically carrying all that love texting today.”

But that is not the point. Doomsday is not the real matter at hand. Such warnings will be ignored, just as we have ignored them so many times in the past. The truth is that whether or not any catastrophe ever befalls us, we will have lost a great tool of civilization.

The book is the record of what we are. And this medium does not occur in nature. It is just as artificial as the iPod. It is a product of the human imagination. And just as the iPod is the end product of a thousand smaller technologies without which it could not exist, the book too will go away if the infrastructure that makes it possible is neglected.

The record of what we are should not be left in the hands of a few. Just as the codex took the place of the ancient scroll and thus permitted authority to assume control over what we should know, the internet and its offspring are liable to central management. They will have their own purposes in mind, whether their hearts are good or bad.

We must take care.

There were four feathers on the inside edge of the bar. Each of them were gray, black and iridescent in different ways. Pigeon feathers. They reminded me of a story. Not the Updike. The Mason. They weren’t white, but that’s just the way my mind works.

So I asked the bartender about them. He said some woman had been sitting there earlier and left them. He was going to keep them aside until closing just in case she came back.

She didn’t come back.

He was wiping things down for the last time and I folded my money on the tab and I asked him if he’d let me have them. He nodded.

I put them up into the edge of a picture frame I have in my room. The picture is a joke. My oldest daughter came by to visit one time and later she sends the picture to me because my room is so small. It’s the picture van Gogh did of his bedroom in Arles.

I have to admit, the chair and bed are just about the same. But I think my room is smaller.

I put the pigeon feathers up in a row across the bottom, evenly spaced. It gave that cockeyed picture a touch of whimsy it didn’t need, but it entertained me. There just wasn’t a lot like that in my life right then.

One week later–a true August night with the air baked still and the streets empty except for those of us who were too stupid to be gone–I was in the same bar. For the same reason. The job was killing me. I really needed a hard drink, but I usually settle for the beer. They have the local brews on tap and I sample them one by one. I can watch the ball game through to the end that way. There was no TV in my room. No air-conditioner for that matter.

Before I can order the bartender says to me. “You still have those feathers?”

I say “Yeah.”

He says, “Can I hav’em back? The woman came in the next day lookin’ for’em. I told her you come in sometimes on Fridays. She said she works late on Fridays, and could I get’em for her.”

This kind of put me off. Partly because he didn’t apologize for his mistake. Maybe just because I liked the look of them up there in the frame. But probably because I could tell this woman had some curb appeal. Most bartenders won’t make a lot of effort for just anyone. And I wasn’t even going to get to see her. And then too, possibly because I can get a little stupid sometimes.

There are at least six different bars between my office and the subway entrance. I had chosen this one for no particular reason. I did not feel any special attachment. The TV picture was nothing special.

So I said, “I don’t think so.”

He gives me a scowl. “Why not?”

I said, “I like them. I’ll keep them.”

He sets the empty glass in his hand down with a real knock. I guess he had picked it up for me in the first place.

I said, “See you later.”

Now I knew my reasons weren’t all that good, but that’s the way I felt about it. I get to do what people tell me to do all frigging daylong, five days a week. There was some little pleasure in saying no. Afterward, I felt bad for the bartender. He was just trying to get along, same as me. I wasn’t making his life any easier. But it was done.

The next Friday I’m in a bar about a block away. It’s the middle of the game and I’m into my third beer.

Someone taps me on the shoulder.

I knew it was the woman who left the feathers the instant I turned around. Women don’t tap me on the shoulder all that often, you know. Besides, I always wear the same cap my kids gave me for Christmas more than twelve years ago and I’m not a small guy.

She says, “Can I have my feathers back?”

I gave her a thorough look. I didn’t miss much that wasn’t covered.

Then I said, “No.”

“Why?”

“I like’em.”

“They’re not yours.”

“They are now.”

She tilted her head sideways at me. It was more a pose than anything. I could tell she wasn’t thinking a whole lot. She was angry…She was gorgeous.

She said, “What is it with some people? Why be an asshole?”

There are a lot of ways to answer something like that. Witty ways. Thoughtful ways. Humorous ways. Stupid ways.

I said, “Tell me why you want’em.”

She said, “None of your business.”

I said, “Okay then,” and turned back to the bar.

You know how it is with beautiful women. They get their way. They’re used to it. The smart ones even know how to play off other women who are less fortunate and jealous of their looks. They learn how to do that when they’re just out of diapers. My youngest daughter does it without a thought.

The woman stood there. I could feel her anger radiating in her body heat.

She says, “Why do you want them?”

Her question was right in my ear. I didn’t turn around. She hadn’t answered my own question. I could’ve demanded that she answer me first. But that didn’t seem the way to go.

I told her the truth, “They’re beautiful. They remind me of a story. They fill up the room with the story. I like that.”

She just stood there. Not a word. I waited and sipped my beer. The Red Sox gave up another run. Maybe a full minute passed.

Then she said, “You ought to trim the hair in your ears. It’s ridiculous.”

So that kind of broke the situation down. It gave a little perspective.

I said, “You want a beer? The Red Sox are getting their butts kicked.”

She hesitated. Then she sat down. I put my index finger up for the bartender.

She says, “What story? Updike?”

“No,” I tell her. The Four Feathers. A. E. W. Mason.”

She says, “I never read it.”

I look sideways at her. She has the profile. She’s going to get old someday but her nose will never hit her upper lip.

I said, “You haven’t been a sixteen year old boy with ambitions to wander in deserts, prove your courage, and fight for love.”

She glanced back. This wasn’t as sure a glance as I expected. She was worried about something.

“No. I never was.”

The bartender set down a glass of the same tawny ale I was drinking. She held it up, kind of looking through the color. She held the glass with her fingertips so her fingernails sort of bit the glass. Women do things like that to draw your attention. Makes you wonder about the feel of those nails on your skin.

I gladly interrupted the thought. I said, “It’s all in my head now, of course. You get to a certain age and it’s all in your head or it’s not. You can’t make it up anymore.” She was sitting there real quiet then. I expected some repartee. You know. Women just don’t sit down in bars with strangers without a few lines ready. But she didn’t say a word. For my part, I was well beyond most of that. I haven’t yet picked up a woman in a bar that I can remember. Not for lack of trying. They just don’t get excited when I start talking about Raymond Chandler or Joseph Conrad or whatever I’m reading at the time. And I’m not about to spin my wheels over some broad who probably can’t tell me why she likes Patrick O’Brian better than C.S. Forester. Women always like O’Brian better. At least that’s the way my daughters think. I’ve had that argument but I always like to hear them explain it.

Finally she says, “What do you do?”

Legitimate. Reasonable. But not what I expected for some reason. I expected her to get back to the damn feathers.

“Office work. Whatever they have.”

“Why?”

“Child-support.”

Now this covered a lot of ground without much explanation. There wasn’t really a story there anyway. Not worth telling. So I just left it.

She’s quiet again. I can’t tell what she’s thinking now, but I make up a scenario of possibilities. I decide she has it figured that I’m just a divorced loser with an attitude, who reads books to escape from the mundane reality that has him pinned to the boards. At least I hope she’s thinking that because it would mean she’s smart and it’ll save a lot of time talking about the ugly details.

She says, “Why don’t you teach?”

I had to think about that. It was an odd question under the circumstances. How much was I going to say?

“I taught for twelve years. I hated it. It’s not one of my talents.”

She says, “Why don’t you write, then? If you write your stories down, you wouldn’t have to steal other people’s feathers.”

She’s good. She’s thinking it through real quick. I had a friend who always said ‘those who can’t do, teach, and those who can’t teach, write.’

I tell her, “I did. But my stuff didn’t seem to hit on the right nerves. I write too slowly. It takes a lot of time and doesn’t pay the bills.” Now she knows enough. Now I want to know something about her. I ask, “Now you tell me this: why did you sit down?”

She sipped at her glass, nodded a bit, and licked some foam off her upper lip.

“Just curious. I wondered why you wanted those damn feathers.”

I gave that a nod. “So now you know. Talismans of lost time. Relics of religious wars. Symbols of self-made myths.”

She smiled. It was a real smile. At least I had humored her.

She said, “Maybe. Maybe you just wanted them because they were left behind and it made you wonder what their significance was in the mind of the woman that left them…You like imagining such things I’ll bet. And then you liked what you imagined and you didn’t want to lose it.” She looked at me. She knew she was right. She wasn’t looking for confirmation. “What was the story you imagined?”

This was more than self-assured, I thought. It was really smart. And it was begging me to ask why she had the feathers in the first place, all while placing the onus on me. My middle daughter does that kind of trick all the time. She’s gotten better at it since she started college.

Right then I was also wishing I was ten years younger and still had the balls left to make a decent play here. This was the kind of woman I could get serious about real quick. It makes you wonder about the perversity of life. Everything is timing, they say. I married a woman who taught high school English in the room next to where I was failing to teach history, just because we both liked the rice pudding in the cafeteria. She never wanted to do anything else. She’s a sweetheart, but she imagines grocery lists and color coordination and when to put the winter clothes away. I dragged her all over Eastern Europe after the Iron Curtain fell in 1991. She was miserable. She didn’t want any part of it. The streets were dirty. The sewers were backed up in Budapest. Who cares where the hell Dracula once lived? With the same money we could have bought an above ground pool for the back yard for the kids for Christ sake…All that’s in your head, and you have to find a simpler answer.

“Okay. I’ll tell you. And I’ll tell you first so you don’t think I put it together from the evidence that’s sitting right here beside me. But then you have to tell me the truth. Tell me why you want the feathers so bad. Don’t game the situation.” I took a deep breath for emphasis. She squinted at me. I think my preamble irritated her. Good women hate to be presumed upon. So I started in on it anyway, “I imagined you were a good ten or fifteen years younger. Early twenties. Not in love but wishing you were. A little lost. Full of pretense. Maybe the type who always wants things bigger than they are and has started to settle for second best. And you found the feathers over in the park on a bench. A kid had left them there. And it made you remember your own childhood and the dreams you had and the way you used to collect little things to mark the dreams, like bookmarks. And you realized you’d made a wrong turn. You were reminded of the person you wanted to be and that now you were forgetting about, what with all the demands from college and family. The feathers reminded you of your own promises to yourself.”

She sat back. The squint was gone.

She said, “Damn.”

I said, “Damn what?”

She blinked. “Damn you.”

I think I saw a little circle of light flash there in her eyes. She was very serious.

I said, “I’m sorry.”

It was all I could say. I wasn’t sure which part of what I had said hit the mark, but it was enough.

She sighed. Then she took a long drink on her glass. Nearly emptied it.

She turned to me all the way on the stool when she put her glass down. “I’m not that old.”

I shrugged. “I figured you’re about thirty five, thirty six. That’s a lot younger than me. Why are women so touchy about their ages. It’s no big deal.”

She said, “How old are you?”

I look every bit of it so I told her. “Fifty-two”

She nodded. “I turned forty last week. That was the day I got the feathers. I was sitting in the park, watching those kids. I don’t have any kids. You know? But I wanted them. And then time went by. It just flew. And there I was, forty years old and this little girl came right up to me where I was sitting. I heard her mother tell her they had to go home and she had to leave the feathers, but she came over and gave them to me instead. They were my only birthday present…And I wanted them back.”

A cut of the light told me definitely there was a tear there and she turned away then because she saw that I saw it.

I was done.

I said, “They’re yours. You can have the feathers back.”

But she shook her head. She said, “It’s too late. There’s another story now.”

→ More John Finn Stories

A short but excellent article in the Wall Street Journal by Steven Johnson does the service of touching on a few of the key elements in the ongoing murder of the book. They would be called clues were the crime not committed in plain sight and to the indifference of those very witnesses whose lives and fortunes will be most devastated by the loss.

I imagine the death will be mourned much like that of a rich uncle whose testament has yet to be read. The gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts will not occur until later, when it is discovered that Uncle Octavo has squandered his fortune in recent years and there is nothing left for his various relatives or wives, much less his children, legitimate or not.

Let us look at the evidence.

There have been many articles of late on the coming of the electronic book. Mr. Johnson very wisely proffers some more subtle forensics, but most of the others have the gosh-wow of a kid in the 1920’s who has built his first crystal-radio. Oh, how the world will change! And I would hasten to add, the world did not change enough to keep that kid off the beaches at Normandy in 1944.

The first new new internet was the system of canals that enlarged our lives starting around the 1820’s. By that time, mankind had traveled on roads by foot, wagon, and coach for many thousands of years–roughly at the speed of conversation from ear to ear. One terrific change caused by the canal was the rise of New York City publishing at the hub of a new age. Railroads came along shortly after–much like wi-fi has followed cable–and increased the importance of New York as the intellectual center of the universe.

Electricity brought with it the genius of the telegraph, the teletype, then the telephone. The radio was quickly overshadowed by the television. Through all of this, the book maundered the results. Gatsby played his phonograph, the literati danced, while in the alcove by the potted palm, Prufrock, martini in hand, warned of the hollowing of mankind. And, nearby, the butler could be seen with a candlestick entering the library.

The threads which held the bindings through the centuries have been pulled in favor of a cheaper glue. The sturdy cloth covers that replaced the extravagance of leather have now become mere cardboard. The paper of the text itself is re-cycled–acid free and ready to be recycled again. All of it is disposable now. Books warp and buckle on the shelf without being read or even handled.

And what of the contents in the library safe? The jewelry is paste–mostly post-modern costume artifacts. Words are now adjusted to suit the occasion. If a word bothers you, it can be banned. If an author does not stay on topic, he won’t get a slot on the talk show.

It is time for the e-book.

It’s time that the author be dethroned in any case. Who are they, after all? Just products of their time. Their words might well have been spoken by any other. Their ideas are borrowed, are they not? They are just the latest product of an imperfect educational system. Where they differ, it is only a matter of prejudice.

It is time for the e-book.

Truth is only relative. Offending passages can be digitally removed. ‘Facts’ can be enhanced to suit the moment. And who will be the judge of that? Or is it just that–the truth has no relatives.

Who will save the Earth from these troublesome books? Recycle them!

It is time for the e-book. Have you got one yet? It can be read on the subway, or at the park. All the books in the world are in your hand. All the intellectual power of Rome! No need for libraries. No need for bookshops. No need, in fact, for books.

Technology has triumphed. No longer is the screen bleached by the brilliance of the sun…But neither is it graced by the glimmer of quiet revelation as the eye meets the word in ink on a page.

Mr. Steven Johnson refers to the book as “dark matter.” Yes! Precisely. The tens of millions of books that have shaped our culture will now be burned into pixels of light.

Mr. Johnson is clearly smitten with his toy, but importantly he has paused to ask some questions. His wariness is perhaps caused by a glance at the toys of yesteryear filling the back of his closet shelves.

As the great Google digitalizes text and makes each passage of Moby Dick available sentence by sentence, and word by word, what place will be left for Ishmael? Will Isaac be the only survivor instead? Choose your own text, and Melville be damned.

Mr. Johnson notes: “Because they have been largely walled off from the world of hypertext, books have remained a kind of game preserve for the endangered species of linear, deep-focus reading. Online you can click happily from blog post to email thread to online New Yorker article–sampling, commenting and forwarding as you go. But when you sit down with an old-fashioned book in your hand, the medium works naturally against such distractions; it compels you to follow the thread, to stay engaged with a single narrative or argument.”

Willy Loman might have warned, “Attention must be paid.” But with attention spans being reduced to a mere click, is it necessary to read the part about the whaling industry? Can’t I just go right to the good parts? Are you bored yet?

Will writers write so that readers can play tag with the gems and ignore the settings? The heroin of one climax after another will make the marijuana of Proust rather passe, don’t you think? Or is there time to think when there are so many links to follow? The great Google will lead us to an answer.

And when the electricity fails and the lights go out, what? Was the candlestick to hold a candle, or to bludgeon?

I have designed at least a thousand homes in my life. None of them built. Designing a home to suit a specific need has become my way of relaxing. It’s a quick and purposeful refuge from those realities I need to escape. Watching a baseball game is good, but not nearly as good.

Looking back over some of the designs, many of which took weeks to complete, I can trace my own intellectual and emotional history as well as my economic state of mind. The homes are smaller during periods of financial difficulty. They were largest when my bookshop business did best. But, more interestingly to me, they all have a central idea or purpose and looking at older plans now reminds me of dreams I’ve had and perhaps forgotten.

Most of my houses were designed for a rural setting. I have always wanted to live beyond the drone of cars, where the stars of the Milky Way pollute a deep black sky. I have always wanted to try my hand at gardening–carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans. I like large fireplaces and the flutter and hiss of a fire. I am a connoisseur of well water. And I have always wanted one room built of stone where I could keep my books.

For perfection in that last regard, I cannot fully express my jealousy and admiration at first seeing the wonderful stone library built by John Adams at his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. Of course, he earned and deserved that much.

It’s not a surprise then, perhaps, to learn that I have always lived in apartments. I’m told by people who assume greater wisdom that actually owning my own home would cure me of this foolishness. I, in turn, feel sorry for them for not properly appreciating their blessings. Forty-five years of apartment dwelling has given me a sense of certainty about my needs that is unswayed by issues with plumbing, painting, gutters, roofs, and all the rest. And besides, I have dealt with all of that during the years of operating my shop.

A key part of any of my designs has always been a desire to build the house with my own hands. This aspect of my dream has shrunk in recent years along with my economic and muscular wherewithal. And this brings me to a recent re-evaluation of Mr. Thoreau’s small project at Walden.

I cannot in any way be considered an ascetic and thus Thoreau’s cabin in the woods would not actually suit me. It is too small. I have slept in closets as large. I am not comforted by the closeness of the walls. There is a wood stove and not a fireplace. I like wood stoves, but I need a fireplace. The windows are too small. I like to look from my window when I write and when I pace. I pace a lot. The toilet there would mean an unbearable walk on a cold winter’s night.

Nevertheless, he built it. And he lived there. He sat at that small desk by that small window and wrote great words. The words did not mind. He lay at night in a bed that was little more than a bench and dreamed without restraint. And because his house was small, he got out a lot into the world about. I admit if I had my own dream home, I would have difficulty leaving it. Discomfort has its uses. But as I say, I am not an ascetic. I am not even a vegetarian.

But I am an architect of sorts. This is a fundamental profession of humanity. We don’t flourish in caves. Nests are inadequate for more than a season. Ants and beavers are good with mud, but their design lacks room for books.

It is my fault perhaps that I see the writing of a story in the same way I visualize a house. This is not a simple metaphor. The integrity of the finished structure is the object. What I want in writing is a finished product that serves a specific purpose and is a delight to look at. I need a fireplace for heat as well as beauty. I need a porch for the fires of summer and the colors of spring and fall. I need a library for background and study. I need a kitchen for food as well as the preparation of food. I need a bedroom for rest and pleasure. And I need a living room where the interaction of my family of characters is not only possible, but probable.

I understand that most novels are not written in this way now. It is the way Trollope wrote, and Victor Hugo, and Jane Austin. Merry-go-rounds and racetracks are better metaphorical examples for more modern works. And I see this as a fault in the modern world and not in my plans.

I used to plan great novels–epics and multigenerational affairs–great rambling country houses and post-Victorian extravaganzas. I could write for endless hours then. I enjoy reading mythology and enthusiastically mixed up a stew of gods and goblins and mortal dreamers. In fact, there is a science fiction story I have worked on for many years, and am determined yet to finish. It stands now at about a quarter-million words and I’m not half done.

But now, most of my projects are smaller. I write for about three hours each day. I don’t want the project to extend into years because I simply have fewer of those left in the pipeline and I have quite a long list of stories I want to tell. And so Thoreau’s little house takes on a new interest.

I design smaller houses now. Just a few rooms. A reduced kitchen for sustenance and coffee. A library for about three thousand favorite books. An indoor toilet with a shower is in order. I must have my shower in the mornings. Our children are on their own these days so one bedroom is sufficient, and a bedroom of less than Homeric dimensions is adequate. A living room that might assume a portion of several other parts will save space–but with at least one big window and a fireplace for the winters. And I’ll need a porch for the warmer weather and rainy days. There is little better time spent than standing on a dry porch during a summer rain.

I met a man the other day. Not a great man perhaps, but at least a very good one, I can tell you. Cyril P. Foley played first class cricket for Cambridge (right-hand bat, right arm slow), fought in the Boer War (Jameson Raid), was a crack shot, enjoyed auto racing, fly-fishing, tennis and golf, went on a serious search for the Ark of the Covenant (the Parker Expedition), spent twenty months in the trenches of France and Salonica without leave during the Great War, liked to play the tables at Monte Carlo, and wrote a wonderful memoir about a world long vanished which is filled with incident while never telling a story about himself that is not at his own expense.

Great men seldom have time to write their memoirs, and good men usually refrain out of modesty, but thankfully there are some of those who have a talent for words and realize they were present when things happened that are worth remembering.

Lieutenant-Colonel Foley’s book is the kind of thing that makes bookselling worth the trouble. The man died in 1936, but he’s alive today for anyone with the time to read. He called his book Autumn Leaves and you can meet him there yourself if you go to the trouble of tracking a copy down. A sturdy reading copy should run you less than $30. [note: I’m out of copies myself or I wouldn’t post this right now. I don’t want anyone to think I’m speaking well of a book just to sell it.]

My own copy was once the property of Captain Horatio James Powys-Keck, Cyril Foley’s dear friend, and another legendary cricketer, and that’s a story in itself. And that too is one of the best secondary pleasures of buying used books–meeting their previous owners on the way.

The problem is that few people really do read anymore. This is a fact difficult to recognize in an environment buried in words. But the closing of one more bookshop is testimony to this. The absence of lunchtime browsers was a fact. The disappearance of evening crowds was real. The drop in book orders can be easily charted.

The failure of my shop is undoubtedly the result of my own foolishness compounded countless times a year, over the almost thirty years we managed to survive my mistakes. The blame is certainly mine for being unable to adjust to the shift of popular habit. But some fundamental things have changed in those years, and this has resulted in a loss far greater than one small business.

When, in the late Seventeenth Century, the ministers of the Scottish Church decided as a matter of national policy that each man should be able to talk directly to God, with no intermediary, it meant that every man, woman, and child must learn to read, so that they could see the word of God for themselves, and thus have something to discuss. In 1680, rock barren Scotland was one of the poorest and most illiterate nations in Europe. In one generation, literacy became common. The Scotland of Adam Smith lay directly ahead.

Naturally, a person who can read might read anything. The Scottish Enlightenment transformed the world. The American belief in education did not arise from the Puritan stocks and chains. This country was blessed one more time by the law of unintended consequences as the English depopulated Scotland to make room for sheep.

There is a common misunderstanding which has been long promoted by our schools. All cultures are equal, ergo, all cultural values are equal. It’s not true. The very fact that you may read this today is the result of a cultural value not common to world history nor even to most of the people alive today. The freedom to read this essay is unusual, even though the specific skill of reading is not. And this value is now endangered by carelessness, irresponsibility, and ignorance.

A common belief today is that almost everyone in America can read. Anecdotal evidence contradicts this. Stand on any corner and see how many cars actually stop, instead of simply slowing down. The sign does not say, ‘slow down.’ People can, perhaps, read, but they do not. They often choose not to. They cannot take the time to stop.

The good of reading is inherently in taking the time to comprehend the words and discuss them–with yourself if no one else. Taking the time to think about an issue or an event and consider it in the light of another opinion or someone else’s memory results in realization if not revelation. We are not perfect. Did you know that? Our individual memory is flawed. That’s why there are twelve people on a jury.

Reading a book is a discussion between the reader and the author. Taking the time to read is inherently an understanding of the value of discussion and argument as well as seeing the context of events and issues beyond your own narrow field of vision.

When I hear someone say they do not have the time to read, I know I am listening to someone who is dangerous. This person may drive a car. This person is spending money on things with poor judgment. This person may be a voter. Worst of all, they may be raising children to be as ignorant as themselves.

And now, because our schools have taken on the mission of parenting and child care instead of education, new generations have come along who do not read. They don’t believe it’s necessary. They get everything they want from television, cds, dvds. They drive cars. They buy stuff. They might even vote. But you cannot know what they might do under duress, because they cannot discuss their thoughts with you. They can’t explain themselves, but they might feel like expressing their wants and concerns one day. Be aware!

Cyril P. Foley took much for granted in his small work. He assumed there were things he had witnessed in his life that might be of interest to someone else, just as he assumed it was important that he spend twenty months in the trenches to protect his right to play cricket. He did not think of himself as an important man, but he deeply understood the values which made his world possible. He believed there were matters of consequence at the heart of his life which, when revealed to others, might pass on his own understanding, and his sense of value. He did not reckon that one day his words would be lost because people no longer read.

One anecdote he tells is more than comic relief: “Going along Oxford Street in a bus,” Cyril P. Foley once recalled, “I heard the conductor telling a woman the names of the shops that had formerly stood on the site of a large store. Realising that he must have been either the freeholder, the builder or a postman, and judging him unlikely to have been either the first or the second of these I said to him, ‘How long have you been a postman?’ ‘How did you know I was a postman?’ he inquired. ‘Quite simple, my dear Watson,’ said I. The man, who had evidently not read his Sherlock Holmes, nearly fell off the bus, for his name was Watson.”

This is a perceptive mind that listens, questions, and considers.

For many years I knew that the days of my own shop were numbered. When I interviewed new employees I would warn them that the end was near like a sort of literary adventist. Stores like ours had no place in the future. Wasn’t the writing on the walls? The young ones always found my warnings humorous. The older ones usually nodded with some degree of understanding. But I always assumed there was time left. I deluded myself, despite the obvious evidence, into believing that the end was not yet at hand.

Foley’s short account of his 1909 search for the Ark of the Covenant is worth every penny for the book. One moment especially–having jury-rigged a series of short ladders as they explored the key shaft beneath Jerusalem in their quest, candles in hand: “Over my head was a huge dome or vaulted roof, and running up to the right a steep passage, half filled, as far as I could see, with great boulders. Nothing would have induced me to leave that ladder, for the slope appeared to be as slippery as ice. By the dim light of the candle it looked a grim and ghastly spot, and I could not help remembering that I was probably the fourth human being who had looked on it for 1,800 years…I was just about to descend when I heard a movement away up the passage and, in my horror, something came rushing down it with the speed of thought. Before I could move, a dreadful shape hit me full on the shoulder, knocking the candle out of my hand and leaving me in opaque darkness. Being deprived of all volition by sheer terror, I mechanically beat all records down the ladder, struck the ledge at the bottom, and turning a complete somersault, fell, with what the shilling shockers of years gone by would have described as ‘a sickening splash’ into two feet of dirty water.”

Indiana Jones, eat your heart out!

Cyril Foley was made of the sterner stuff.

After duty in the trenches at Faucaucourt, Foley was rushed, on his 47th birthday, to battle the Bulgarians at Salonica. But though he spent his time in battle, he spends his pages telling us about the court martial of a soldier for drunkenness on duty, who is acquitted because he comes to the court drunk again after a lubricated lunch with his attorney and his defense plays on his appearance as only his natural demeanor, and claiming the accusation to be a mistake.

My own foils and foibles have been a bit less dramatic. Around my 47th birthday I was battling with leaking roofs, petty theft and the Internal Revenue Service.

Just as there were thousands of mistakes I made which contributed to the weight of our final difficulties, there are countless reasons for the lack of readers. Much could be made of the sad fact that many of those who do read are reading the same books. Arguments can be waged about the merit of the writing that is being published. Pleas can be heard for better quality in the making of books. Criticism would be directed at the libraries who have forgotten their mission as they replace books with audio-visual materials. One small essay is insufficient space for the task.

This then is just a note in passing. I regret my failure most because I will no longer be able to offer the work of authors like Cyril P. Foley to the hands and minds of the few who still wish to read. I would battle a hundred leaking roofs for that honor. I will miss the bookseller’s singular daily pleasure of introducing a customer to someone they should know.