"This collection of historical and commercial analysis should fascinate those seriously involved with book culture and/or the industry." -- Publishers Weekly

"Forget the premature obituaries for books and reading. Stiphas insists that books remain a vital presence in the twenty-first century." -- Booklist

Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead.

From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities.

Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.

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Hardcover: 272 pages
Author: Ted Striphas
Publisher: Columbia University Press (May 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0231148143
ISBN-13: 978-0231148146

CONTENTS
Introduction: The Late Age of Print 1
Bottom Lines 6
Edges 9
Sites 13
1 E-Books and the Digital Future 19
A Book by Any Other Name 23
Shelf Life 26
Book Sneaks 31
Disappearing Digits 40
A Different Story to Tell 44
2 The Big-Box Bookstore Blues 47
Chain Reactions? 51
Thoroughly Modern Bookselling 56
Things to Do with Big-Box Bookstores 70
History’s Folds 77
3 Bringing Bookland Online 81
“The Tragedy of the Book Industry” 84
Encoding/Decoding—Sort of 91
A Political Economy of Commodity Codes 99
The Remarkable Unremarkable 107
4 Literature as Life on Oprah’s Book Club 111
O® 114
“No Dictionary Required” 117
“It’s More About Life” 125
A Million Little Corrections 130
An Intractable Alchemy 137
5 Harry Potter and the Culture of the Copy 141
Securing Harry Potter 143
Pirating Potter 157
He-Who-Must-Be-Named 171
Conclusion: From Consumerism to Control 175
On the Verge 176
From Heyday to History and Beyond 187

INTRODUCTION
“AN IMMINENT CULTURAL CRISIS.” That’s how the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) summarized the findings of its 2004 report on the health of reading in the United States.

What precipitated the agency’s grim prognosis was a dramatic, 10 percent dip it had discovered in the number of literature readers—defined as readers of novels, short stories, plays, or poetry. In 1982 almost 57 percent of adults reported having read at least one literary work for pleasure in the preceding year.

By 2002 that figure had tumbled to roughly 45 percent and showed no sign of rebounding. With fewer than half of all adults in the United States reading literature, the clichéd conversation starter, “Have you read any good books lately?” was now more likely to elicit a shrug than a verbal response. ...

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