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This Is Not the End of the Book

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 457 ratings · 52 reviews

'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered.' Umberto Eco

These days it is almost impossible to get away from discussions of whether the 'book' will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting they don't know what will happen. Amidst the twittering, th...more

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published May 5th 2011 by Harvill Secker (first published January 2009)

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Nov 02, 2012 Fionnuala rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was in Foyle’s bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London earlier this year when I came across this book, just the sort of title I wouldn’t find easily online unless I was actively looking for it. One of the principal pleasures of a real bookshop is the finding of something I'm not looking for, so much more exciting than putting a previously chosen list of titles into an online basket and clicking on checkout. As a faithful reader of paper and ink books in this age of of e-readers (and when I mi...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Ned Rifle rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a rather breezy and inconsequential book with no particularly interesting thoughts. I am however grateful for the knowledge that a certain Archbishop (?) declared from the pulpit of Notre-Dame, to a host of returning aristocrats, 'Not only was Jesus the son of God, but he was of good stock on his mother's side too'. Priceless information which earned it an extra star.

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Nov 04, 2012 Michelle rated it 5 of 5 stars

A thoroughly enjoyable book for readers interested in literary theory, philosophy, academics or cultural studies. I digested this book over 3 sittings, and was deeply saddened to have run out of pages. The conversation is engaging and insightful while delving into topics bridging knowledge, culture, and technology with various anecdotes about Eco and Carriere's personal interests and experience. While admitted bibliophiles, Eco and Carriere seriously investigate the purpose, strength and limits...more

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Aug 28, 2010 Steffi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-bibliomanes-libraries

Kürzlich war in den Zeitungen zu lesen, dass Amazon erstmals mehr E-Books als „richtige“ Bücher verkauft habe. Da graut einem vor der Zukunft. Werden bald E-Books in so hoher und die eigentlichen Bücher in so niedriger Stückzahl verkauft, dass nur noch E-Books erschwinglich sind und andere Ausgaben nur noch etwas für den altmodischen, nach Möglichkeit gut betuchten, Buchliebhaber? Gelten Menschen, die in Wohnungen mit langen Bücherregalen leben bald als etwas sonderlich, wenn nicht ungesund? Sch...more Kürzlich war in den Zeitungen zu lesen, dass Amazon erstmals mehr E-Books als „richtige“ Bücher verkauft habe. Da graut einem vor der Zukunft. Werden bald E-Books in so hoher und die eigentlichen Bücher in so niedriger Stückzahl verkauft, dass nur noch E-Books erschwinglich sind und andere Ausgaben nur noch etwas für den altmodischen, nach Möglichkeit gut betuchten, Buchliebhaber? Gelten Menschen, die in Wohnungen mit langen Bücherregalen leben bald als etwas sonderlich, wenn nicht ungesund? Schließlich weiß jeder Buchbesitzer, wie viel Staub sich da ansammelt und welche Hustenanfälle ein sorgfältiges Abstauben nach sich ziehen kann.
Und dann sah ich dieses Buch, dessen Titel mir neue Hoffnung gab: Die große Zukunft des Buches.
Der berühmte Umberto Eco und der Drehbuchautor Jean-Claude-Carrière, der mit berühmten Regisseuren wie Jacques Tati, Luis Buñuel, Louis Malle, Volker Schlöndorff, Andrzej Wajda, Peter Brook und Jean-Luc Godard zusammengearbeitet hat, sind beide große Buchliebhaber und -sammler. In ihren hier veröffentlichten Gesprächen wird deutlich, dass sich noch kein Medium so lange behauptet hat wie das gedruckte Wort, von Volumina über Inkunabeln, usw. Keine FloppyDisc, CDrom oder DVD kann da mithalten. Ständig werden diese Medien durch neue ersetzt und immer sind die veralteten Medien mit den neuen Geräten nicht mehr lesbar. Bei Büchern braucht man solche Hilfsmittel nicht.
Interessant macht das Buch der Vergleich mit dem Medium Film, den Carrière immer wieder einbringt; darüber hinaus gibt es viele informative Geschichten, Hinweise auf weniger bekannte Autoren und Filme und immer wieder das Bekenntnis zum Buch, Interpretationen und Meinungen zu Werken, Details des Büchersammelns.
Manchmal wird das Ganze auch etwas tröge; hin und wieder gewinnt man den Eindruck, da beweihräuchern sich zwei alte Herren gegenseitig angesichts ihres Wissens und ihres Besitzes an bibliophilen Kostbarkeiten. Ja, man muss schon sagen, die hören sich zwei selbst gern reden…
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Sep 06, 2012 Mayra Correa e Castro rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: não-ficção

É difícil demais conter o entusiasmo diante deste livro. Vou mencionar os ingredientes e você imagina como ficou a receita:

- 75 kg (aprox.) de Jean-Claude Carrière (1931), francês, roteirista, ator e escritor, colaborador de Luis Buñuel. Pro que nos interessa aqui, escritor de Índia, Um Olhar Amoroso e colaborador de Peter Brook na adaptação pro cinema de Mahabharata. Bibliófilo em boas condições financeiras.

- 90 kg (aprox.) de Umberto Eco (1932), italiano, escritor, ensaísta e intelectual pop-s...more É difícil demais conter o entusiasmo diante deste livro. Vou mencionar os ingredientes e você imagina como ficou a receita:

- 75 kg (aprox.) de Jean-Claude Carrière (1931), francês, roteirista, ator e escritor, colaborador de Luis Buñuel. Pro que nos interessa aqui, escritor de Índia, Um Olhar Amoroso e colaborador de Peter Brook na adaptação pro cinema de Mahabharata. Bibliófilo em boas condições financeiras.

- 90 kg (aprox.) de Umberto Eco (1932), italiano, escritor, ensaísta e intelectual pop-star, autor de O Nome da Rosa, O Pêndulo de Foucault, Baudolino, O Cemitério de Praga, Como se Faz uma Tese, Semiótica e Filosofia da Linguagem e mais um sem número de obras fundamentais que você deve ter lido se já foi um universitário na área de Humanas. Bibliófilo em excelentes condições financeiras.

- 269 páginas sobre o tema “estamos assistindo ao fim do livro?”

- entrevistador ao estilo “brother”, pitadas a gosto.

Conseguiu imaginar o prato final? O gosto é mediterrâneo, de maneira que nosso estômago fique saciado, mas a apresentação é um nouvelle cuisine que lhe serviram com as mãos: você sabe que alguém se empenhou pra fazer, mas não se leva a sério a ponto de ter criado algo intocável.

Trocando em miúdos (argh!), o livro é a conversa entre os dois colecionadores de obras raras com o entrevistador Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, pouco conhecido no Brasil, mas que também é escritor, ensaísta e jornalista. Lançado em 2009 na França, quando a Amazon.fr estava para completar uma década de vendas no país e o mercado editorial francês festejava um aumento de 20% em comparação aos anos anteriores, ele deve ter sido a resposta mais bem aguardada diante da brochada que foi a crise dos subprimes naquele ano. “E agora, acabamos?”, deve ter se perguntado toda a cadeia produtiva do livro.

A resposta de Jean-Claude e Eco é NÃÃÃÃO.

O livro, como a roda, é um invento perene e que não exige aperfeiçoamentos. Nasceu obra-prima e com design definitivo. Nem os ebooks são páreo. Se um dia não tivermos mais energia elétrica, quem estará em nossas mãos provendo informação, um livro ou um ereader? Pra entender melhor a discussão – mas, principalmente, para se divertir – , leia alguns trechos que selecionei.

Bon appétit!

Leia o restante da resenha com citações extraídas do livro em:
http://asmelhorespartes.blogspot.com....(less)

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Jul 15, 2012 Arun Divakar rated it 4 of 5 stars

I sometimes rummage through the racks of the New Arrivals section of my library just to get a kick out of books which I have never before heard of. In one such expedition and upon reading Eco's name, I turned this book around to read the back jacket blurb. One single line made me decide that I wanted to read this book The book is the like the spoon, the hammer or a wheel which once invented cannot be bettered. And so I began my sessions with Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere.

Having never h...more I sometimes rummage through the racks of the New Arrivals section of my library just to get a kick out of books which I have never before heard of. In one such expedition and upon reading Eco's name, I turned this book around to read the back jacket blurb. One single line made me decide that I wanted to read this book The book is the like the spoon, the hammer or a wheel which once invented cannot be bettered. And so I began my sessions with Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere.

Having never heard of Jean Claude Carriere, I was inclined to think that it will be more of an Eco monologue. How wrong was I ! Carriere is very much an equal to Eco in erudition, scope of reading and skills of articulation which comes along with striking clarity in the points he puts forth. The whole book is centred around that question of whether the book will withstand the technical blitzkreig. Very early in the book, both of these intellectuals arrive at the conclusion that come what may, the book will survive like it has before the ravages of history. Once settled, this point is put aside and they move on to other topics which discuss in eloquent detail things like bibliophilia, the ready-baked book, the threat of fire to the library, human stupidity...you get the picture ! While this makes one wonder why the title of the book, to me it was an extremely pleasant and lucid series of conversations. Both of them are more of avid book collectors which would weigh slightly more as a behavioral trait than being dedicated readers of the book. Starting from the seemingly precarious position of the book in the technologically lightning fast world of ours, they go on to discuss a great many points that make up the corner stones of the global potpourri of cultures.

Analogy : Eco & Carriere are in a library bent over a table above which a bulb burns. They are deep into some activity as we slowly walk to the table side. Once there, we realize that they are in fact dissecting the volatility of technology and media in the form of some gadget. They pick up some thing or the other with a pair of tweezers, wrinkle their noses and Eco tells Carriere You know what this means don't you ? Carriere would wink and nod his head and say Let's go read something instead ! . They put down the tweezers and walk deeper into the library talking about Borges, Marquis de Sade, the religious texts of the world, television, the death of the video tape and a great many thing of interest to the bibliophile. You stand by the table side grinning like an idiot as you watch them disappear among the shelves crammed with books stacked floor to cieling !

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Nov 16, 2012 Liviu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010_release_read, non-fiction, read_2012

seems to be a must for any book lover

read 1/2 and I would just put this quote for now:

"J.-C. C.
Fifteen years ago there was a movement of American writers who protested against the computer on the grounds that because early drafts of a text appeared onscreen already in typeface, they possessed an innate authority that made them harder to analyse or correct. The screen gave them the dignity and status of a text that was already almost published. Another school, on the other hand, believed – like y...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Leo Robertson rated it 2 of 5 stars

One or two good ideas, masked in a huge pile of pretention. Who curates a conversation ffs?! My copy is annotated with my dad's great comments, which include "crummy" for J.-C.C.'s Vishnu journey through the internet. RU4RL!

Plus, they did very little to argue against the annihilation of the book. It still appears to me that all future paper books will start to dissolve in favour of digital copies, while if you are a book collector you will continue to collect old books... duh.

Here are some alter...more

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Nov 10, 2012 C P rated it 4 of 5 stars

“This is Not the End of the Book”, Umberto Eco & Jean-Claude Carrière (2012) is a brilliant book of conversations; on display, here, are the spontaneity, capacity for retort and the embattled witticisms of two thoroughly entertaining, and well-informed, litterateurs. The book sets itself an ambitious project and then talks its way out of the bargain, but this is its eminent success: the pomposity of the claim to unearth the selcouth provenance which has watched over the longevity of the boo...more “This is Not the End of the Book”, Umberto Eco & Jean-Claude Carrière (2012) is a brilliant book of conversations; on display, here, are the spontaneity, capacity for retort and the embattled witticisms of two thoroughly entertaining, and well-informed, litterateurs. The book sets itself an ambitious project and then talks its way out of the bargain, but this is its eminent success: the pomposity of the claim to unearth the selcouth provenance which has watched over the longevity of the book recalls Eco’s delightful and rigorous book, exploring the search for man’s primordial, pre-Babel, language- and the motley claims of ragtags and half-witted geniuses about its divine primogeniture: Serendipities: Language and Lunacy (1998).

Screenwriter and actor Jean-Claude Carrière, known for his academy award winning work Heureux Anniversaire (1962) with Pierre Etaix, and the surreal Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) with Buñuel, comes out sporadic aces to club Eco’s glib digressions pertaining to his own older fictions and essays, and his inventive restatements about the sheer resistance of the book as a form that has rendered itself archetypal. The two men take convivial jousting to a degree that belongs, only too sadly today, to the mere demography of readers of books- televised debates by and large having been co-opted for the quintessential sound bite.

The book is rapid fire and the numerous steerings and reneging of Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, perhaps in his curatorial zeal and general diplomacy in interposing for the breathless reader, serve to close off the loose ends of rare bindings, and incunabula appropriated by wealthy universities that preoccupy Eco and Carrière’s restless, eclectic education.

A sparkling moment, here, symptomatic of the book’s general joie de vivre:

Jean-Claude Carrière: “...During the Restoration, the ultra-conservative Archbishop de Quélen declared from the pulpit of Notre-Dame to an audience of French aristocrats newly returned from abroad, ‘Not only was Jesus Christ the son of God, he was of excellent stock on his mother’s side’...” (207). Umberto Eco: “...it seems to me that saying Jesus was ‘of excellent stock’ is not entirely idiotic. Simply because, from an explanatory point of view, it is true. It is, I think, more a case of foolishness: I can say that someone is of good stock, but I can’t say it about Jesus because it is obviously less important than him being the Son of God. So, Quélen was stating a historical fact, but an irrelevant one. The fool tends to speak without consideration (210).

Of course, as with, all the older work of Eco- bristling with encoded references-, and Carrière- famed peddler of familiar rarities of surrealism-, this book too bears its precursors as a presentiment: there will be no original turn now, the wheel once invented will never be bettered, like the spoon. Umberto Eco, (1990): “There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics…Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy”. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars…There are lunatics who don’t bring up the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious. At first they seem normal, then all of a sudden…”

http://skepoet.wordpress.com/2012/11/...

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Nov 16, 2012 Angel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: book lovers

Shelves: books-and-reading, commentary-and-opinion, library_science

The only reason I am not rating it higher is because the two authors-- Carriere and Eco-- do have moments when they just ramble on and on. After a while, you might want to skim some parts. But that aside, the book is set up as a conversation between the two authors moderated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac, and it is worth reading. The two have great insights on all sorts of topics related to books, and even on some topics that may barely touch on books. They talk about books, the Internet, libraries...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Peycho Kanev rated it 4 of 5 stars

"The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered". (Eco)

Contrary to the title, this is not a book in the conventional sense but a conversation on books between polymath and screenwriter that was "curated" by a third party.
Eco and Carriere exchange insider information about book collecting. You can find the occasional bargain, Eco says. “In America, a book in Latin won’t interest the collectors even if it’s terribly rare, because they don’t read foreign languages, and definitely...more "The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered". (Eco)

Contrary to the title, this is not a book in the conventional sense but a conversation on books between polymath and screenwriter that was "curated" by a third party.
Eco and Carriere exchange insider information about book collecting. You can find the occasional bargain, Eco says. “In America, a book in Latin won’t interest the collectors even if it’s terribly rare, because they don’t read foreign languages, and definitely not Latin.” A Mark Twain first edition is what excites them. De Tonnac asks each man about his dream find. Eco’s response is conventional: “I’d like to dig up and keep, selfishly, a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever printed,” he says. Carriere opts for the discovery of “an unknown Mayan codex.”
Throughout, the text is peppered with entertaining anecdotes about their personal libraries, books they have loved and sold and the future for their vast treasure troves. Eco had a distinguished 30-year career in the academic world, with sidelines making cultural TV programmes and working as an editor in Milan, before The Name of the Rose. Why did he feel the need to add fiction to an already overloaded CV? In part, he says, it was accident. A friend asked him to write a short detective novel for a new series she was preparing. He told her that if he did, it would be set in the middle ages and would have to be 500 pages. That was too big for the proposed series, but the idea had been planted in his mind (or, as he prefers, his belly), and a publishing phenomenon was born. Even without her intervention, however, he implies that he would eventually have written novels. The notion of poisoning a monk appealed to him, and he already had a list of monkish names filed away in his drawer for possible use.
In the end I would like to quote Eco again:
“There is actually very little to say on the subject. The internet has returned us to the alphabet. If we thought we had become a purely visual civilization, the computer returns us to Gutenberg's galaxy; from now on, everyone has to read. In order to read, you need a medium. This medium cannot simply be a computer screen. Spend two hours reading a novel on your computer and your eyes turn into tennis balls. At home, I use a pair of Polaroid glasses to protect my eyes from the ill effects of unbroken onscreen reading. And in any case, the computer depends on electricity and cannot be read in a bath, or even lying on your side in bed.
One of two things will happen: either the book will continue to be the medium for reading, or its replacement will resemble what the book has always been, even before the invention of the printing press. Alterations to the book-as-object have modified neither its function nor its grammar for more than 500 years. The book is like the spoon, scissors, the hammer, the wheel. Once invented, it cannot be improved. You cannot make a spoon that is better than a spoon. When designers try to improve on something like the corkscrew, their success is very limited; most of their `improvements' don't even work. Philippe Starck attempted an innovative lemon-squeezer; his version may be very handsome, but it lets the pips through.
The book has been thoroughly tested, and it's very hard to see how it could be improved on for its current purposes. Perhaps it will evolve in terms of components; perhaps the pages will no longer be made of paper. But it will still be the same thing.”

This is Not the End of the Book is heartening exploration of the nature of the book and it the importance of books to society and posterity.
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Jun 11, 2012 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting book about books (does that make it a MetaBook?)

I've read and enjoyed a lot of Eco's works, but hadn't heard of Jean-Claude Carriere before. Think I'll be looking for some of his other work now.

Reading about 2 obvious huge bibliophiles talk about boots made me feel better about the number we have around the house. And also removes some of the 'guilt' about not having read everything out there (though I still have plenty of time).

The one fault with the book would be that the format oc...more

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Nov 17, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fun

Why only three stars? Because it promised more than it delivered. It delivers one key message: that the book will survive because its format doesn't need replacing; it endures like the wheel or the spoon, essentially unchanged in its appeal, portability and beauty. I found it diverting and entertaining but not provocative enough or ground-breaking in any way. Maybe you need to be an Umberto Eco or Jean-Claude Carriere fan to enjoy their confessions and fetishes; there's a lot about their book an...more

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Sep 14, 2011 Ajai Mangattu added it

Recommended to Ajai by: it was my friend

this is one of the wonderful books I have read in recent years. IF you are a reader or writer, who loves reading and collecting books for years, it s a must read. It s a conversation between Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere, on books and its history. What will happen to books in a digital age? this question prompts them to think and discuss about the past, present and future of books. I am delighted and enlightened by their sharp thoughts and witty conversation. It makes you feel confident i...more

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Oct 07, 2012 Lammoth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ламот Хвалебствений: Като цяло интересна книга. Представлява диалог между Еко и Кариер (с епизодични включвания на Жан Филип дьо Конак), които обсъждат интересни теми свързани с книгите. Дали имат те бъдеще, каква промяна претърпяха с настъпването на интернет, а също коментират интересни факти и събития.

Ламот Критичний : Да ве! Празни приказки общо взето, никому ненужни факти и размишления. Разсъжденията може и сам да си ги направиш, не са кой знае какво. Като че ли не знаеше например как истор...more Ламот Хвалебствений: Като цяло интересна книга. Представлява диалог между Еко и Кариер (с епизодични включвания на Жан Филип дьо Конак), които обсъждат интересни теми свързани с книгите. Дали имат те бъдеще, каква промяна претърпяха с настъпването на интернет, а също коментират интересни факти и събития.

Ламот Критичний : Да ве! Празни приказки общо взето, никому ненужни факти и размишления. Разсъжденията може и сам да си ги направиш, не са кой знае какво. Като че ли не знаеше например как историята се е пренаписвала спрямо националните интереси на всяка страна (дават за пример Кемал Ататюрк) или пък как поетите от малки страни (тук дават за пример България) не могат да станат световноизвестни, заради мащабите на самата страна...

Ламот Хвалебствений: Но Еко и Кариер са вманиачени букинисти, всеки от тях притежава богата колекция от 30-40 хиляди книги, някои от които изключително редки. И двамата са от онзи класически тип интелектуалци, от които може да се научи много, не само за книги. Обхващат почти всички сфери от бита и културата. Все пак историята на книгата е един вид история на човечеството.

Останалата част от диалога: http://lammothsblog.blogspot.com/2011...(less)

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Jan 12, 2011 Sergey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Книги, книги и книги... в наше время - множество поводов задуматься над собственным отношением. Вот только жаль, что авторы лишь едва коснулись судьбы книг в век информационных технологий. А хотелось бы, помимо открытых вопросов, также услушать как они себе представляют будущее книги, чтения, библиотек...

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Nov 01, 2012 Ficbot rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, non-fiction

This was a fabulous book. As someone who reads almost exclusively in ebook these days, I expected lots of curmudgeonly stuff about the superiority of paper. But Eco and his co-authors are too educated for that. They have all been around for long enough to see technology---and mediums---come and go. After all the library burnings, conveyance mechanisms (stone tablet, papyrus etc. all the way up through modern computers and so on) and historical trends they have studied and seen, they understand t...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Susu added it · review of another edition

Shelves: import-visual-bookshelf

Also, wenn Eco und Carriere sich unterhalten, dann geht aber der Zug in Sachen "höhere Bildung" ab. Die beiden Herren tauschen sich nicht nur über ihre bibliophile Sammelleidenschaft aus, sondern auch über alles, was in den Büchern so drin steht - ein paar Lebensweisheiten eingeschlossen - und wer hätte gedacht, dass dabei auch Karl Valentin zitiert wird. Kurzweilig zu lesen - nichts für bildungsferne Schmökerleser.

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Jul 31, 2012 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

The title has it wrong -- not at all an argument that the book must survive in its past form. Two erudite book lovers reminisce near the end of their collecting lives, considering the book and what it means to them. More "This is the Book at my End". A delight to read. If it only contained the quotations assembled by these two men, it would be a worthwhile anthology of thoughts. Their own additions are invaluable.

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Jun 01, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Happily a brilliant book to read on the train as it is immersible and divided into short segments so you can be distracted by the chap who takes your ticket or the snack cart.
Sadly this also means that there is very little overall narrative and, although I thoroughly enjoyed J-C Carriere and Umberto Eco's discussion, because it reads like listening in on a discussion the book doesn't ever seem to come to a point.
Highly recommend, but not actually earth (or mind) shaking.

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Dec 29, 2011 Bill Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: society

What a joy to eavesdrop on the conversations of two extraordinary bibliophiles. It is fascinating to delve into their knowledge of arcane areas of literature and listen to anecdotes of collecting great works. Reassuring to hear of people facing similar problems to myself on the issues reading and not reading, storage and shelves. From the sublimely intelligent to the utterly banal. It will be a pleasure to re-join the conversation from time-to-time.

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Aug 06, 2012 Edwina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although I was enjoying the banter back and forth, and I understood a lot of their arguments, I didn't feel the need to finish this book. The authors just seemed to go around in circles with their debate about the future of books, looking more to history of the book than anything else.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for circular logics, and it may be that I will come around and return to this book and indeed finish what I started.

It was kind of fun, in a geeky sort of way.

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Dec 20, 2011 Stefan Bolea rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Although being a major fan of both Carriere and Eco, I found their tone too nostalgic and reactionary. I expected to hear more about ebook readers & "digital cosmology". Perhaps if the late Baudrillard and Zizek had met and started to talk about books, the rhythm and content of the discussion would have been much more spectacular.

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Dec 19, 2011 Amanda Patterson rated it 1 of 5 stars

I looked forward to this book but found it tedious.
Carrière and Eco converse about the influences of the digital age on the book. They boast about their vast book achievements, ramble on until they decide that the book will continue as it stands or be replaced by something resembling the book.
Am I supposed to take this seriously?

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Jul 16, 2012 sevda n. rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book. It's amazing.
I think I knew it would became one of my favorites long before I finished it. It was a joyous travel in the world of books. Just the right amount of history, personal stories, antropology and so much more. Very balanced and enjoyable. Any book lover need to read this.

If not now, at least in the next three years. :-)

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Jun 12, 2012 Farah Aridi added it

Very fun conversation between two experts, one of whom is my favorite (Eco). You can learn a lot through their talks about the history of the book and share with both of them the passion of books and reading. A very fast and recommendable read!

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Jun 10, 2012 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars

Non-fiction ~ a discussion between Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere about the value of the old-fashioned book as opposed to electronic options. Fascinating to those who are interested in the value of reading.

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Sep 15, 2012 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars

A book about two aging bibliophiles sitting around, talking about books. And with what breadth of knowledge and subject matter! Truly an impressive read.

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Aug 07, 2012 Amanda Jay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

4.5 stars, fascinating read. mostly for the wonderful conversation between two incredible minds. wish this was here when I was writing my thesis though :(

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Jul 22, 2012 Adeela Badshah rated it 5 of 5 stars

An exciting conversation between two great minds about the book, its course through history and it's future. A must read for all bookworms out there.

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About Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco is an Italian writer of fiction, essays, academic texts, and children's books, and certainly one of the finest authors of the twentieth century. A professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, Eco’s brilliant fiction is known for its playful use of language and symbols, its astonishing array of allusions and references, and clever use of puzzles and narrative inventions. His per...more

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“În clipa când ți se impune să nu te gândești la un lucru, te vei gândi doar la el, obsesiv. Interdicția devine obligație.” — 2 people liked it

“A ști anumite lucruri pe de rost îți conferă capacitatea unei înțelegeri superioare.” — 2 people liked it

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