I’m meant to give a talk in Sydney called Perish the Thought, about the death (and/or resurrection) of the book, so I’ve been studying. Here’s a lovely eighty-year-old fragment of poetry on the subject, by one Bob Brown. It comes from his self-published book Words (1931). It’s a confident prediction of what lies ahead:
In the reading-machine future / Say by 1950 ...

Nineteen-fifty has come and gone. Have we arrived in the reading-machine future yet?

Always fun to consult the oracle regarding the future of the book. If you have favorite prophecies, I’d love to hear them.

Contact

Find me in the open social web (fediverse; Mastodon): @gleick@mas.to

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Literary agent:
Michael Carlisle
at Inkwell Management,
521 Fifth Ave.,
New York 10175.

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