.Books… they’ve been around in their current form for hundreds of years, and we’ve been reasonably happy with them. But now there is an entire alphabet of book formats available:
- p-book – printed (or paper) book
- a-book – audio book
- e-book – digital/electronic book
- v-book – video-text-image hybrid book
I’ve been an avid reader since I was about 5 years old. Put a book in my hands and I’m gone from this world into somewhere/somewhen else. P-books (paper books) have been part of my life for over 50 years augmented with the earliest version of a-books (audio books: Mom reading to me).
More than 20 years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed a P.D. James mystery while traveling on Interstate 90 for hours. It was the dozen or so audio cassettes that made a very long drive manageable.
While I haven’t yet bought an e-book reader like the Kindle, I’ve read books on my smart phone since DaVinci’s Code appeared. The little screen on my Palm Treo was just the thing to read that story in “gulps!”
I admit it, I bought the Lost Symbol to see if Brown’s latest book was just as effective on my iPhone. Alas, while the reading process was the same – gulps, again – the story just didn’t hold its own.
The Washington Post today presented me with yet another choice! A v-book! Simon & Shuster’s Atria Books is offering the Vook, a video/book hybrid available as an iPhone app, where you’ll find videos and hyperlinks that supplement the narrative interspersed throughout the usual text and graphics.
The book is changing indeed!
As discourse moves from printed pages to network screens, the dominant mode will be things that are multi-modal and multilayered, says Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book. The age of pure linear content is going to pass with the rise of digital network content.
But what about reading? Will young people enjoy it as much as I did? Will all the slick production eliminate imagination altogether? All we can say is… “to be continued.”
