Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.
From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.
Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.
- Contents
- Preface to the Paperback Edition
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Late Age of Print
- 1. E-Books and the Digital Future
- A Book by Any Other Name
- Shelf Life
- Book Sneaks
- Disappearing Digits
- A Different Story to Tell
- 2. The Big-Box Bookstore Blues
- Chain Reactions?
- Thoroughly Modern Bookselling
- Things to Do with Big-Box Bookstores
- History’s Folds
- 3. Bringing Bookland Online
- “The Tragedy of the Book Industry”
- Encoding/Decoding—Sort of
- A Political Economy of Commodity Codes
- The Remarkable Unremarkable
- 4. Literature as Life on Oprah’s Book Club
- O®
- “No Dictionary Required”
- “It’s More About Life”
- A Million Little Corrections
- An Intractable Alchemy
- 5. Harry Potter and the Culture of the Copy
- Securing Harry Potter
- Pirating Potter
- He-Who-Must-Be-Named
- Conclusion: From Consumerism to Control
- On the Verge
- From Heyday to History and Beyond
- Notes
- Index
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