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The book is dead, long live the book

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A LOT of ink has been spilled on the supposed death of the printed word. Ebooks are outselling paper books. Newspapers are dying. "Phone books are already dead," said James Reid-Cunningham of the Boston Athenaeum library at a conference called Unbound: Speculations on the Future of the Book, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in May. "The days of the codex as the primary carrier of information are almost over."

This has inspired a lot of hand-wringing from publishers, librarians, archivists - and me, a writer and lifelong bibliophile who grew up surrounded by paper books. I've been blogging since high school, I'm addicted to my smartphone and, in theory, I should be on board with the digital revolution - but when people mourn ...

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