Rare Book Monthly

Articles - September - 2014 Issue

Are Books Really “Dead?”

Bookshelf Porn.

It is conventional wisdom these days that books are dead. By books, I refer to the printed version, not the electronic impulses that constitute the books you read on your Kindle or iPad. It is those copies made from paper and ink that are “dead.” Didn't sales of the electronic versions soar past those of the traditional ones at the world's largest bookseller, Amazon, long ago? Haven't traditional retail bookshops mostly disappeared from the landscape? Once conventional wisdom has placed its judgment upon you, there is nothing left to do but say goodbye.

 

And yet... Today we see a number of new high-volume sellers specializing in “books by the foot” or “books by the pound.” Wait! Don't hit the back button just yet. Hear me out. There is a business that goes by the name “Books By The Foot.” You can buy a foot of books for as little as $4.99. Or, you can select. If you like red books or green books or pink books, you can fill you shelf with your favorite color. Alternatively, you can select by size, age, or subject matter. You probably won't read any of these books, but if you select wisely, they will look very nice on your shelves.

 

Even the venerable Strand book shop in New York offers books by the foot. Their offering feels a little better as they create “libraries,” books compiled by subject rather than color. Still, it seems dubious that their buyers actually read them. Strand will even rent you these books, but again, this is not like a lending library for readers. It's for staging a model apartment or for use in a film shoot.

 

Then there are those who sell by weight rather than dimension. Market Fresh Books (“deli style”) of Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, offers books cheaply by the pound. These, actually, are more aimed at readers, being newer, used books, often paperbacks, that aren't going to command much of a price sold individually.

 

There is a website called “Bookshelf Porn,” and if you love books, you will love this site. It consists of pictures people have submitted of their bookshelves. There is something riveting and beautiful about a bookshelf full of books. You instantly understand why people buy bookshelves for their homes, and if they don't have books, buy them by the foot to fill up those shelves. Nothing can combine art and intellect quite like a book. What you can't tell from these pictures is whether anyone ever read these books.

 

I have heard that many people, particularly in tonier neighborhoods of pricey cities, consider book-laden shelves de rigueur. I did a little research to see how popular these book storage devices are. If books are dead, then bookshelves must be too. Tire sales will crumble if people stop buying cars. It's sort of what they call in market investing a “leading indicator.”

 

I went to Amazon and did a search for “bookshelf.” It returned 36,055 matches. “Bookcase” did even better, with 46,170 matches. Undoubtedly, if you dug all the way to the end, some matches are probably accessories or something other than true bookshelves. Nevertheless, that is a lot matches, and everything on the first few pages was legitimate. Certainly, some people buy bookshelves for other uses. Still, bookshelves aren't a good match for most other purposes. You can't fit many knick knacks on them. I have a receiver/amplifier on a bookshelf by my desk, but it hangs over the edge. All of these pictures displayed books on the shelves. That is obviously their primary use.

 

A similar search of eBay revealed 17,492 matches for “bookshelf.” “Bookcase” doubled it at 35,524. Wal-Mart dot-com, admittedly not the most likely place to find owners of tonier homes, offered 1,552 matches for “bookshelf,” 5,045 for “bookcase.” Even regular folks appreciate books. How can there be so many bookshelves offered for sale if no one wants books anymore?

 

That brings us back to that initial squeamishness we felt when the expression “books by the foot” was mentioned. Something doesn't feel quite right about it. No one buys a yard's worth of red books to read them. But, is this fair? Is anyone more honored in the book collecting field than the 16th century French collector, Jean Grolier? America's most famous society of bibliophiles is named for him. Is Grolier remembered because he was a great reader? No. He is remembered for the exquisite bindings he had prepared for his books. I'm sure Grolier read his books (actually, I'm not. I have no idea). Still, it is his decoration of them that has made Grolier the most famous bibliophile. His exquisite bindings were totally unnecessary for reading. They served only to make his books beautiful, works of art, like those bookshelves filled with books by the foot. What's the difference between a shelf full of books with fine bindings versus a shelf full of pink books, other than good taste?

 

How about the greatest of the fine, private press printers, William Morris? Is he renown because he selected for printing those titles which were the most interesting to read? Ever try to read Chaucer? Unless you are some Old English linguist, you won't have a clue what he is talking about. Nevertheless, the greatest private press book ever printed remains Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer. If you know someone who owns one, and you ask whether you can take it out to read, be prepared for some language you won't hear in a lending library. What it means is “no.”

 

The fact is, people have been buying and collecting books for reasons other than textual content for centuries. Even Gutenberg's Bible was far fancier than it needed to be for simple reading. Compare it to another famed book meant just for reading, the Bay Psalm Book, and you will notice a stark difference. Books are for more than reading. So, maybe we shouldn't be upset with the concept of “books by the foot.” Those aren't the first books that won't ever be read. Even so, they are a reminder of the role books have played in our lives, in our history, in our learning and intellect. They are a symbol, and the fact that the symbol we pick to fill our shelves is old books, rather than old televisions, computers, e-readers, and the like, is a statement. Maybe books aren't dead after all.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

Article Search

Archived Articles

Ask Questions