The Late Age Of Print:  Everyday Book Culture From Consumerism To Control, by Ted Striphas

I must admit that while there were parts of this book I found enjoyable, not least the author’s interest in the logistics of books and of attempts to control contents of the books by rights holders, that the main value of this book for a reader such as myself is to clue one in one some of the language of Marxist analysis.  Ultimately, this is a book where the author’s opinions are biased and fairly transparently leftist, and where the real benefit is to provide insight into the sort of language that leftists use when they are writing about something.  Throughout the book the author tries to argue that he is not considering print culture to be obsolete even if there is a crisis of confidence among the culture at large when it comes to the fate of books.  But just as Marxists referred to the “late age of capitalism” during the time of the Soviet Union, the author’s reference to the contemporary period as “the late age of print” is clearly a sign that he is approaching the publishing business from a leftist political slant and wishes to comment on its obsolescence.

This book is a bit short of 200 pages and is divided into five chapters and several sections within each chapter.  The author begins with acknowledgements and an introduction that talks about “bottom lines,” “edges,” and “sites” when it comes to what he considers the late age of print.  After that comes a chapter about ebooks and the digital future, which talks about the definition of a book, concerns about shelving eboooks, book sneaks, disappearing data, and different stories to tell (1).  After that comes a chapter that looks at the big-box bookstore blues not as a cause of the troubles in the book business but a result of them (2).  The author speaks of the joys of trying to bring bookland online, with a look at coding and ISBN numbers and the issue of logistics (3).  After this comes a discussion of the Oprah Book Club and what it seeks to offer to its mostly female readers (4) in terms of encouragement and realism.  A chapter about Harry Potter and the culture of the copy and the author’s own critical view of J.K. Rowling’s own (lack of) originality follows (5), after which the book concludes with a discussion about the move from consumerism to control along with notes and an index.

This book is a classic example of a case where someone chooses great material to write about but who is hampered by a lack of transparency about his worldview.  On the one hand, the author seeks to differentiate himself from those who would mindlessly troll the Oprah Book Club or big box stores like Barnes & Noble.  Likewise, the author shows an obvious interest in the questions of the logistics of shipping books and also attempting to manage the dates when books go on sale so as to reduce the tendency of people to take advantage of rolling release times and international shipping to get products sooner than the company wants.  The author also demonstrates the way that rights holders have been particularly aggressive about seeking to keep anyone else from doing what writers have done since time immemorial in adapting previous writings and in slightly changing them by infusing one’s own creativity into shared universes and stories.  Overall, this book demonstrates in a variety of ways the sort of insecurity that is faced by companies that sell books in one way or another about how to make money off of books as a commodity and also prevent others from making money off of their products through resale or through derivative works.