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The book fair in Frankfurt, the largest in the world, ended Sunday in a favorable climate for publishing, while we speculate for years on the disappearance of the book. And this is not to displease our columnist Jean-Pierre Montanay ...
Gutenberg, the first printer in history, must have fun. Survivor of the old world, the book is resisting the invasion of digital and screens. Where the record, then the CD, the cassette, and the DVD, like the notebook and the phone book, capitulated to join the graveyard of the vintage, the book put a slap on the e-reader.
Haunting the booksellers at its release, it was to squash, paper and ink, and revolutionize the world of publishing. Fifteen years later, it sells a reading light for 20 books and the e-book is hardly better in Anglo-Saxon countries.
The reading crisis dates back to the 1980s, long before digital and the smartphone. At the time, the designated culprit is the TV. In reality, reading is a story of time. Now we are more and more to be looking for silence, loneliness, even boredom. All this is finally propitious tomorrow to more reading. The edition has understood this well: she publishes a lot of books on meditation, yoga, digital cutting and personal development.
Libraries in Amazon's time have a future
At the time of the giant Amazon, bookstores have a future, provided they put a stack to transform and reinvent themselves. Look down from home: no more bookseller who just sells books. He gives advice, organizes reading circles, workshops for children or offers a coffee to drink by devouring a whiff like at home. And between Tolstoi and Proust, he makes room for mangas, the new best-sellers of the edition.
The height: Amazon, which had to chew the bookstores with its deliveries in 24 hours, opens in turn bookstores in the United States. When the Gafa go all right, right?