Ebooks may yet save hardback books

Why condemn populist ebooks when they sit so comfortably alongside the 'elite' of high quality hardbacks?

One of the most fascinating, and durable, tensions in the world of books is the dialectic of the mass vs. the elite. You can frame this in so many ways: Wilbur Smith vs. Book Slam short story annual" Too Much Too Young. This beautifully produced hardback, signed by its authors, including David Nicholls, Marina Lewycka and Jackie Kay, follows Book
Slam's first volume, One for The Trouble. Like the debut volume it collects specially commissioned works from household names as well as rising stars, and presents it in a highly traditional print format (though audio and digital
editions will follow).

This is all the more remarkable because Book Slam, founded by Patrick Neate, and now a fixture on the British literary scene as a showcase for the very best, and liveliest, contemporary storytelling, began as a distinctly "alternative"
gig. Book Slam, in the words of Hari Kunzru, "has almost single-handedly dragged the London literary scene into the 21st century."

So it's very telling that this new phenomenon should promote its stars with the kind of traditional volume that would be familiar to Dr Johnson, William Shakespeare, or even Caxton himself.

By contrast, almost simultaneously, I received an email announcing Forty Years of Queen being released "as a stunning enhanced eBook." This, exulted the press release, will "will thrill anyone with an iPad."

To launch the first Queen eBook, apparently "the most advanced music eBook on the market", I was invited to come and watch Brian May "demo it", and "ask him all about it..."

Forty Years Of Queen is, I'm sure, a wonderful addition to the digital archive, but it's aimed at a mass market. It probably has only the most limited life as a book for a shelf, and will essentially appeal to Queen fans the world over, several hundred thousand, no doubt.

In the bad old days, it would have been a large format paperback. The e-revolution brings its many blessings in disguise.

EbooksRobert McCrum
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