Literary news is full of Philip Roth, author of "Portnoy's Complaint" and many other novels, winning the first ever PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, a $40,000 prize named for the late Nobel laureate and one of Roth's closest friends and literary heroes.

However, when listening to this news bit on the radio this morning, my ears pricked up when Roth was recorded saying, "(I regret that) the age of the book is coming to an end." (I've found no further info on this quote, or anything else said around it. Maybe someone can track down the entire statement somewhere.)

Sour grapes? Just an old man resistant to change? What do you think?

I suspect he was comparing time spent watching TV to reading a book. Etexts are probably off his radar screen.

I think others have talked about younger generations have a short attention span and are more likely to read online than "real books." This might be what he means. Even music albums are disappearing in favor of non-sequenced mp3 tracks on mp3 players.

But did TV shows result in the disappearance of movies? Neither do I think books will disappear due to online reading or short attention spans. Like other media, they will be fighting against ever increasing entertainment choices, but they fill a niche that won't be replaced completely. Just migrated in part to e-book form, which will hopefully help save the book, not kill it.

even radio is still with us and stamp collecting :D

They're thinking of pulling TV off the airwaves though!

even radio is still with us and stamp collecting :D

Yes, but the radio of today is nothing like the radio of the first half of the 1900s. Will books be the same in 100 years?

Philip Roth was speaking about a decline in reading of novels as a source of relaxation and entertainment. This observation is probably correct.

We simply have more entertainment options, and unless there are ways to "read" during commute times, there is no way we can spend more time reading.

On the other hand, more reading than ever is going on. It may be more casual, shorter formats and for reasons other than sheer entertainment. For example, I read a lot more forum posts today than I did 10 years ago...

Recently seen someone reading "Crime and Punishment" in the subway. I see no decline in reading novels of any sort.

Philip Roth was speaking about a decline in reading of novels as a source of relaxation and entertainment. This observation is probably correct.

We simply have more entertainment options, and unless there are ways to "read" during commute times, there is no way we can spend more time reading.

On the other hand, more reading than ever is going on. It may be more casual, shorter formats and for reasons other than sheer entertainment. For example, I read a lot more forum posts today than I did 10 years ago...
I gave up about 50% TV viewing just to read more. What's on these days has been built on old plots from the fifties sixties and seventies. Like they say 'Nothing new under the sun!' Instead of rewatchig ...reread.

Agreed... I can count the TV shows I regularly watch on one hand (and I don't need my thumb).

There may be more "distractions" and other new entertainment options out there, but reading isn't going away. It's just developing new formats!

but I think the "novel" as an artistic form is becoming harder to sustain.

I'm talking about the production side as well as the consumption side. People can continue writing books and reading them, but financial opportunities for authors have been declining and will continue to decline.

Perhaps the key metric to look at is: how many authors have published books this year? and what was the median earnings by the author for the book?

I don't mean to sound anti-tradition, but every public domain book you read is a book by a contemporary author you didn't read. There's only a finite number of novels you can read. Novels will remain an important part of our culture, but only in a more retrospective way (much as symphonies and sculpture are).

Having more public domain ebooks out there is a great thing, but it doesn't help contemporary authors in making a living. On the other hand, if you are writing a book about Ruby on Rails or some nonfiction type, it is still a good time to be writing books.

A good novel takes 2-5 years to write; but if there is little commercial interest in financing these projects, creative types (even the respectable ones) will naturally favor more lucrative genres. Writers go wherever the audiences are. And the audiences are renting DVD's and playing videogames. The novel as a genre will survive as long as it continues to attract talented producers of them. I write fiction fulltime (and I've committed a lot of time to practicing the art), but if I were 5 or 10 years younger, I would go into a different kind of writing with a hope of reaching a wider audience. Grassroots projects like nanowrimo provide a reason for hope, but they won't change market realities.

I am not being pessimistic; I am just taking note of where the audiences are right now. Also, as I stated before, reading is continuing; it's just not in the genre of novels. (On the other hand, poetry and more compact on-the-run formats are receiving renewed interest).

Here's an essay I wrote about the topic (http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=3905).

Artists are not rich people and have rarely been unless born so, with exceptions obviously. Making a living from art is an administrative task at which very few are proficient. Those that do well by it work just as much at promotion then at their art. But face it, what artist wants that? Many writers of lore, popular today, died poor. Thse who inherited or bought their rights are making money. Then again this is an administration of rights task.

I wish I could have been taught that in school but would I have listened?

You're not pessimistic about the whole thing. There are many art forms competing against one another and the additional digital media have taken a big chunk of it, lowering even more the "audience, readership, patronage" capacity.

People today, being bombarded from all sides, tend to restrict their availability to others' artistic expressions. Works have to be broadcast further to get attention.

One of my friends is a radio journalist. He took a sideline job with a publishing company to write custom stories for them. This company can then tailor its readership. It's a job but can it be art? To me it feels like the artwork you can buy in furniture stores. It lacks the reality and edge only a starving artist can perform.

Robert, (rjnagle)

When have authors *ever* made tons of money off of their novels? No, I'm not talking about the 'next great "Bridges of Madison County"' here. I mean, the average mid-list novelist? If novelists wanted to make money, they'd give up the dream of writing and become publishers - or found Google! And there are *thousands* of novels being published each year. I bet if we went back to the 'good old days' of Dickens and Dumas, we'd find that fewer than a hundred authors managed to get their works into print on any given year.

Stop bemoaning the 'death of the novel' and get yourself outside - it's raining soup!

As for ebooks, I prefer to buy my ebooks for the very reason that I *WANT* my favorite authors to keep getting paid! If they don't get paid, they might not write any more! (Of course, I have Mobipocket, eReader, Fictionwise and Baen accounts set up. I can't afford to limit myself to just one author or just one genre. :D)

Furthermore, despite what some professors of literature might claim, the best novel out there isn't one which causes the reader to pause and ponder the human 'condition' - it's the one which entertains the reader the most and causes the reader to buy another. And maybe you hang out with authors who 'gestate' their novels for more than two years, but most authors I hang with kick their babies out of the nest into the 'maybe never' files after 12 to 15 months.

Derek

For a moment let's leave aside the issue of dollars and cents. Imagine all books and novels were free. (And essentially I regard all novels as free these days ("free" is < $5).

do you read as many full length novels as you did 20 years ago? Do people today read as many books as they did 50 or 100 years ago?

In the 19th century there was a modest number of writers, but insatiable demand for reading material. It roughly parallels what is happening in the DVD market today.

As for "human condition" novels, the novel assume different functions in different time periods. Honestly, I don't want to sound as though I'm putting down "story for story's sake". In literature the story is the thing..the only thing! It's just that print books are less likely to reach a wider audience than a DVD or TV show. These days, a movie is the genre more likely to attract media attention and commercial attention. Of course, the ebook revolution (and by implication the wider availability of content) may change that--but they can't add more reading time to a person's life.

The novel's raison d'etre is is to do and say what only the novel can do. What kind of story can you tell which you can't do in a DVD or TV series? The implication (as I see it) is a novel more intellectualized than what we had in previous centuries (whether you like it or not).

I have nothing against a nonmonetary system of publishing novels. My only point is that fewer financial rewards reduce the incentive for writers to continue producing for that genre. Writers go where the money (and audience size) is. A print book is considered a "success" if 5000 copies are sold; videos have far larger reach (especially as a result of Youtube).

But as I said, the INternet changes everything. My personal fiction site easily fetches 100,000 unique visitors per year, something I never would have envisioned under a print publishing system. And many others out there are receiving many times more traffic than I could dream of.

Perhaps just as many novels (if not more) being produced as there was 20 years ago. That's not the point. Aren't novelist's less likely to receive recognition than screenwriters? The novel is an intriguing form (and read Jane Smiley's 13 ways of looking at the novel for a nifty evaluation of it), but there's nothing sacrosanct about it. Genres come and go; but storytelling continues...

Hmmm... You ask an interesting question. (Leaving aside the concept that a novel that costs less than $5 is 'free' - which it *ISN'T*! :P ) Do I read as many full-length novels now as I did 20 years ago?

Let me think about this [Insert Jeopardy 'waiting for an answer' music here]... Okay. The answer to this is *MORE*! I used to consume about four or five per year back in the mid-80s. Now I consume about twelve times as many. Right about now I'm reading through Suzann Ledbetter's "Hannah Garvey" series and as soon as I'm done I'll be moving along to my spanking-new ebook versions of Steve Miller and Sharon Lee's Korval novels - courtesy of Baen's Books and Webscriptions, had to get the plug in as each set of five novels costs $20. And while I'm flat on my back this summer recovering from gastric bypass surgery, I fully expect to go through all of Carl Hiassen's books as well as re-read David Weber's "Empire From the Ashes" - which as everyone knows is actually the three novels "Mutineer's Moon", "The Armaggedon Inheritance" and "Heirs of Empire".

I think the major reason I read so little back then was because at the rate I read, I'd have had to pack around three or four paperback or hardcover novels and that wouldn't have left much room for work material. With my PDA I can stuff a dozen full-length novels into main memory and over a thousand more onto the Compact Flash card; give me sufficient battery life and I'm good to go for weeks! All in one pocket-sized device. And I don't know where you're getting the idea of 'nonmonetary' from. I shelled out $30 to Miller and Lee for the privilege of reading their new novel, "Fledgling" as they serialize it online. (What can I say? I get off on studying the gestation process of a novel. :D)

But I don't really *like* being tied to a weekly timeslot before I get my 'next fix' as one must with TV series. And while the 'rush' of a movie can sustain me for a half-hour or so, it fades rather fast. On the other hand, reading is something which gives me my 'fix' in dose sizes *I* control and I don't have to get all strung out waiting. Plus, (and I realize this is less true for series) the danged movies are far too 'choppy' for my tastes. Let's take a relatively unknown ebook, Carl Bussjaeger's "Net Assets". It is a fair-to-middling Libertarian, Near-Future SF piece and it might do well as a mini-series, but too much of the message would be lost in a straight movie adaptation or it would suffer from being too drawn out if one tried to turn it into a series.

There is *still* an insatiable demand for written entertainment - novels. Of course, one has to adapt to the times and seek rewards in a range of fiction genres. I think what we're seeing is the realization of authors that this is no longer a producers' market. Consumers *are* more demanding, and authors who limit themselves to one genre are not going to see the sales that ones who branch out will. Look at John Ringo with his "Paladin of Shadows" series - quite clearly NOT SF and nothing like his series based upon "A Hymn Before Battle".

Derek

I read more novels than I did 20 years ago, and I watch less TV than I did 10 years ago, for all I'm following more shows (but that's a side-effect of Tivo -- it allows me to watch the shows I will watch when I actually want to watch TV, rather than watching those particular shows when they come on, and watching whatever drivel happens to be on when I get the TV urge, usually late at night when there's nothing but drivel on)

I don't know that novels are more intellectualized than video formats, but I do know they're a lot cheaper to produce. Think about it, something like the Star Trek franchise shows (to pick one that everyone is familiar with) has a huge production budget -- on top of the writing that has to be done before the show gets anywhere near filming. But if you were to present the same stories in a totally written format, all you'd have beyond the cost of writing would be the cost of printing and distribution/marketing/etc. And of course e-books cut a lot of that out of the equation.

I think novels still do a good job of telling stories that don't parse well to video. Some of those stories continuously cross the line, as the special effects capabilities improve, but then there's always someone else writing something that's even farther out on the frontier of 'hard to film.' Then there's the fact that video is never nearly as good as the written word for capturing internal action, but that largely goes back to the human condition aspect.

Just my thoughts (and it's early in the morning!), salt to taste.

I read more novels now than I did 20 years ago, partially because I can afford to. And probably the fact that I no longer watch TV helps, too. :) But I know I'm atypical in that regard.

I think, though, that with the development of portable electronics capable of using as book readers as well as a variety of other functions, book reading may come back into style. When book content is as easy to obtain as video content (e.g. you can turn on a channel and get some), it may compete better than it has in the past couple of decades.

I realize this is a self-selected crowd, but nonetheless, your feedback here is certainly encouraging.

It's funny. Although I consider myself an ebook freak, I still spend a considerable amount of my reading time reading print books. (I just received Oreilly's Information Architecture 3rd edition book in the mail yesterday and read a few chapters of an Italo Calvino book). Just yesterday I wrote away asking for review copies for myfavorite classics in translation series (http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org/volumes_all.php) . (I did mention in my pitch that I'd prefer it in ebook form).

I spend more time "reading" before a computer screen than ever. But that does not mean I am reading novels.

Jeremy, btw, thanks for the titles.

Phillip Roth's "The Great American Novel" is one of the funniest books I have ever read!

Go Ruppert Mundys!

Book reading is under stiff competition for peoples' time, especially from more interactive and media-rich distractions like TV and video games. However, it's not as if this competition only just began to heat up... in fact, books have been competing against video games for the past thirty years, against TV for the past seventy-five years, and against all sorts of other entertainments and activities for over two hundred years. The rise of the paperback is most likely attributed to this competition, an effort to make books more portable and affordable (for the consumer, as well as the publisher).

The development of the e-book is similarly a reaction to the realities of the times. As computers and electronic delivery systems become more ubiquitous, and as consumers demand more flexible options for content access, so e-books will rise to the occasion and provide that flexible electronic access. That will keep literature accessible to the consumer, improving its portability and affordability, and enhancing its flexibility.

Are books being read less? Sure... a lot of things are being done less, as there are more and more things to occupy peoples' time. But I do not believe that's an indication that the age of books is coming to an end, any more than it has over the past few hundred years. It just means that the book is going through another change in its development, one as significant as the transition from hand-written texts to press, and from big, expensive hardbacks to cheaper, portable paperbacks.

Books aren't ending, they're evolving. The next age of books will certainly be different... but hardly unrecognizable.

Books aren't ending, they're evolving. The next age of books will certainly be different... but hardly unrecognizable.
As you say! Just think as how one of us would appear to someone in the fifties. The book similarly might be hard at some point to recognize but there will always be a place for linear stories.

Cory Doctorow has an interesting take on this in his article Why Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to Google (http://boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why_publishing_shoul.html), about the Google book-scanning debate.

This all comes down to obscurity versus visibility. There was a time when there was a giant market for books as social tools -- read the right book and find people who shared your values, whether that was the guy on the subway with the Dungeon Master's Guide, your hippie co-worker with The Celestine Prophecy, or the latest smartypants volume lauded in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement.

Less and less so every day, though. If there's one thing the Internet is good at, it's connecting people with comparable interests: if you're a Civil War re-creator with a penchant for extreme knitting and left-of-center liberal political beliefs, you can be sure that somewhere on the net there's a group of people waiting to welcome you in. These days, science fiction fans can find all the camaraderie and fellow-feeling of sf without having to do all that tedious reading -- that's why at a con I attended a couple years ago, the two big-name authors on the ticket drew six people, while the guys who made the hilarious video-game-based cartoon Red Vs Blue had a full house.

It was once true that reading was a good way to get some light entertainment -- whether you were stuck on a train or in your living-room, a lightweight novel was just the thing to tick the hours away. But here again, the Internet, video-games and the mobile phone are hugely disruptive. Any overland commuter train has is dominated by phone-conversations, with readers in an ever-dwindling minority.

It's easy to see why: content isn't king; conversation is. If you had the choice of bringing your friends or your books to a desert island, we'd call you a sociopath if you took the books over the breathing humans.

Between vegetative media like TV that leaves your hands free to eat and IM and knit and cook dinner and conversational media like IM and multiplayer games and phones, books are a big loser in the field of providing empty entertainment in the dull moments.

Doctorow goes on to point out that Google's Book Search puts books in front of readers again, which he says is a Good Thing. I'm inclined to agree with him. Books may have much stiffer competition these days, but those same distractions could, conversely, end up directing people back toward books, IF the books can be as easy to access as other internet content.

Which brings us back to e-books, again, of course. :D

Right. Just as paperbacks made books more accessible a hundred years ago, e-books will do the same thing today, making them as easy to carry with you as your cellphone and your PSP. Add some other incentives to them (color covers and back-page ads were the thing with paperbacks), and you have a new product for the 21st century. (Hmm... now where have I heard that phrase before? ;) )

I just happened across this article in Science News about the use of mathematics to study the popularity and evolution of novels: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070616/mathtrek.asp
The researcher is looking forward to more novels being available in digital form. :)

I just happened across this article in Science News about the use of mathematics to study the popularity and evolution of novels: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070616/mathtrek.asp
The researcher is looking forward to more novels being available in digital form. :)

Just looking through his graphs, that emphasize how long books have been with us... through the ages of movies, radio and TV, and into the Internet... is pretty much all you need to refute Roth's opinion about the age of books coming to an end, I'd say. Books aren't going anywhere.

The article does suggest, however, that books may be due for a sea-change, or evolution of sorts. Hmm... maybe to digital formats? ;)

I have some bad news. I think the evolution of books is going backwards. Some companies are putting out paperback books in the taller thinner format and charging more for it. The same width and depth as a mass market paperback, but now just as tall as a trade paperback. Naturally, they're more expensive than a mass market at $10 a pop.

Jon

If they are limited edition classics or something just as interesting like coffee table books, that's OK. Even if I prefer the ebook reader, there are some instances where a big heavy book is a pleasure to browse through. Books like those will always retain value and are worth continuance.

Most paper back is what we should achieve to diminish in print and transfer to ebooks. There is a big judgement call to selection that has to be done and I would not like to be in that person's shoes.

There will always be a place for print and as long as all texts are available to those who prefer an e-format and that the technology of printing brings us to a more mature way of treating nature, I'm all for it.

Eco paper is on its way. Partly recycled paper as we know, sustainable crop yields, vegetable inks, less polluting chemical treatment are factors that lessen an impact on the environment but the most interesting are new sources of fibre that come from tiny easyer controlled vegetals.

The book is not the major paper consumer, it is the office report and the wrapping and cardboard industries.

I think JSWolf is talking about books like McGuire's Son of a Witch (sequel to Wicked, which is only available in this oversized, overpriced trade paper version. (Or hardcover, of course.) Trade paperbacks have been around for quite a while, but whether books go through a trade paper phase between hardback and mass market paperback has fluctuated over time. It seems to be on another upswing at the moment. I see it as just a gimmick publishers use to try to get consumers to pay more for the same content.

I see.

On an other line of thought. To publish such works those companies should be liable to sell every copy in advance. Then the sky's the limit, they can carve them on stone tablets if they wish.

I have some bad news. I think the evolution of books is going backwards. Some companies are putting out paperback books in the taller thinner format and charging more for it. The same width and depth as a mass market paperback, but now just as tall as a trade paperback. Naturally, they're more expensive than a mass market at $10 a pop.

Jon

I've noticed the same thing... there are paperbacks I have not bought because of the size and price. I think they're trying to con us into paying hardback prices for paperback books. Either that, or their making them bigger for all the aging boomers and their bad eyesight.

I've noticed the same thing... there are paperbacks I have not bought because of the size and price. I think they're trying to con us into paying hardback prices for paperback books. Either that, or their making them bigger for all the aging boomers and their bad eyesight.
I think this new format is out there just to be able to justify a price increase without letting the public know that' what they are doing. But some of us have caught on and won't go for their nonsense. I won't buy one of these new fangled price raisers. Nope, not mere. There are too many other books out there I could be enjoying at the regular price.

Either that, or their making them bigger for all the aging boomers and their bad eyesight.

Which is something that eBooks would do really good at.

A good eBook reader should let the user control the size of the font used. So the younguns can use a smaller font, while the oldsters can use the larger font.

Which is something that eBooks would do really good at.

A good eBook reader should let the user control the size of the font used. So the younguns can use a smaller font, while the oldsters can use the larger font.
Hey, that's one of the reasons I got mine, I just planned ahead for it.:grin:

Which is something that eBooks would do really good at.

A good eBook reader should let the user control the size of the font used. So the younguns can use a smaller font, while the oldsters can use the larger font.
WHat I would like is to be able to take a font size that's on screen and tell the reader what size I want and have it adjust all the other sizes by that same amount. So instead of just going up, I can go up or down by how much I want in 1 point increments. That would be great. I'm finding that the default 10 point size with Book Designer to be a mess. 10point is too small and the next size up is larger then I want. I want in between.

When we see e-book publishers OR dedicated device sellers start to market the flexibility of font sizes to your preference (among other things), that's when we'll know they are serious about trying to sell e-books and devices.

What I was thinking of doing is maybe having a look at one of the xml files for the Sony Reader and seeing if I can change the font size change with the font button. No idea if I actually can though. Might need to ask DiabloNL for some help since he's good at it.