THE DEATH OF READING Available to Purchase

Not, you will note, The Death of the Book, The Demise of the Novel, or The End of Western Civilisation As We Know It, or any of the other apocalyptic forecasts that have accompanied the onset of the Digital Revolution. I simply want to say that while all of those other forecasts may (or may not) be true, the central change that this new industrial revolution will bring is a radical alteration in the relationship between the Reader and the Word. If we define the business of reading as the ability to absorb argument or narrative developed serially through the interlinking of sentences, paragraphs and pages of text clothed in the authority of being gathered together in a single binding called a book, then this form of reading will become an arcane pursuit (addicts will doubtless form private clubs to pursue the hobby by 2050: ScreenRead will have arrived).