The books blogs always like to talk about the future, but this week was like some sort of official book blog crystal ball week, what with this new decade they tell me we’re in now and everything.
We’ve already linked to Richard Nash’s take on the next ten years, but the NBCC’s Critical Mass has lots of different perspectives.
My favorite post comes from Anis Shivani, who, rather than blaming technology, says: “It is the gatekeepers of the book who, in this last decade, have been on an unremitting mission to bring about the book’s destruction: librarians who purge books to make room for technological substitutes, newspaper publishers who’re the first to voice the irrelevance of the book review, publishers who do everything possible to fulfill their own prophecies of the end of the serious book.”
Or possibly, this is what the future will look like.
And a British take on the whole mess. (Also here)
Speaking of technology (and the British), Bookninja has an awesome interview with Granta Editor John Freeman on “straddl(ing) web and print.”
Instead of worrying about the Internet, we should worry about books’ real enemies. (via Guardian)
And in other news, no one has ever explained Ayn Rand to me better and more succinctly than this.
