The demise of the book?

Will we in our lifetime see the end of the book as we know it, or used to know it? The evidence, I think, is mixed.

On the one hand, a lot of small independent bookshops are closing, downsizing, or becoming online-only booksellers. On the Ottawa scene, the following spring to mind:
Mother Tongue Books (to close July 21); Nicholas Hoare; Shirley Leishman; Prime Crime; Patrick McGahern; at least two incarnations of a science fiction bookstore; The Bookery (children's books); Books Canada; Jarvis's; Classics (these last three are long gone). On the other hand, we still have Perfect Books on Elgin Street; Collected Works on Wellington; Books on Beechwood (location obvious); plus the chains - Chapters/Indigo, Smithbooks, Coles - and a number of second-hand bookstores.

Many people have e-readers, of course, or other devices like iPads on which they can read books and other text that they download. I have a Kobo (non-touch version) which came pre-loaded with about 100 classics - and it's wonderful knowing I've got them there in easily portable and accessible (at least till the next great technological development comes along) form.

Many people also order the traditional paper books but from an online source - or they take them out of the library. I buy a lot of books through Abebooks (which apparently is now owned by Amazon, though I've discovered a number of the individual booksellers who sell through Abebooks): it's a great source for out-of-print items.

Then there's the second-hand booksales. Two months ago, I wrote about my haul from the Rockliffe Park book sale. A quick update about that - thus far, I've read the memoir of an Ottawa family by Grace Day Hartwick; I've baked muffins, adapting a recipe from the Veganomicon; and I've watched one of the videos I bought there.

What else is Blogcutter reading? Well, at the moment it's John Irving's latest book, In One Person (may not be the exact title) as well as Jan Wong's Out of the Blue (her self-published book about her experience with depression). I recently read a number of the books by authors who were appearing at Bloody Words the weekend of June 1-3 (including Gayle Lynds, Lou Allin, Janice Macdonald, Garry somebody, Erika Chase (a.k.a. Linda Wiken) Hilary McLeod, Kay Stewart); I read Anne Holt's first Hanne Wilhelmsen mystery, Alexander McCall Smith's "The Great Cake Mystery" (a children's book about Precious Ramotswe when she was a little girl); and a history of the free public library movement in Ontario from 1860-1930.

And today, I went to the Friends of the Experimental Farm booksale. They were a little better organized than they seemed to be last year; I joined the line-up around 9:45 where a woman was distributing plastic shopping-bags (I wonder what they do in Toronto now that plastic bags are to be banned?) You could fill one of their bags with paperbacks for a flat fee of $15; hardcover books were $2 apiece.

So here is a list of what I brought home:

Hardcovers - Karol Wojtyla (aka Pope John Paul II), Collected Poems
John Masefield - Poems

Crime novels - The Puzzling Adventures of Dr. Ecco, by Dennis Shasha (about a mathematical detective in Greenwich Village)
- The Dying of the Light, by Robert Richardson
- A Wreath for my Sister, by Priscilla Masters
- Striding Folly, by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Thrones, Dominations, by Dorothy L. Sayers, completed posthumously by Jill Paton Walsh
- The Point of Murder & Almost the Truth, both by Margaret Yorke
- By Hate Possessed, by Maurice Gagnon
- Beware of the Trains & Frequent Hearses, both by Edmund Crispin
- All Shall be Well & In a Dark House, both by Deborah Crombie
- The Keys to the Street, by Ruth Rendell

Canadiana - Dancing in the Dark & Family News, both by Joan Barfoot
- The Husband, by Dorothy Livesay
- Swann: A Literary Mystery, by Carol Shields
- The Falling Woman, by Shaena Lambert

Other fiction - The Woman and the Ape, by Peter Hoeg (translated from Danish - the author also writes crime fiction)
- The Search, by Naguib Mahfouz
- The Black Prince, by Iris Murdoch
- Blitzcat, by Robert Westell
- Jizzle, by John Wyndham

Non-fiction & Reference
- The Ojibwa Woman, by Ruth Landes
- Early Irish Myths and Sagas
- The Bronte Myth, by Lucasta Miller
- Dictionary of Classical Mythology, by Pierre Grimal
- From Abacus to Zeus: A Handbook of Art History, by James Smith Pierce
- The Book of Classical Music Lists, by Herbert Kupferberg

Total haul, 30 books.

I'll issue an update later on where I am with my various reading.

Meanwhile, I've been dismayed by the demise of some newspapers, including the Sunday edition of the Ottawa Citizen and the entertainment weekly, Xpress. But further commentary on that will have to wait for another time.