Bad books

I'm not a fan of books. The book: a perfect commodity invention for the consumerist age. It panders to our feral acquisitive desires. A book is equal to a tube of toothpaste, yet it adopts airs and graces. We've fallen for it: we revere the book, we display it, it's a crime to burn a book. Each medium doffs its cap to the book, when did you see a book recommend that 'now you've read me, why not see the tv series?' The reverse is common. Worse still is that we cosy up to the book, we flaunt our association with books like politicians with babies. 'Well read' is quite another thing from 'film buff.' Curling up with a good book? Are you sure it’s not a paper and type incubus?



Wordy art

The author is alone like a painter. When you read, only one other is with you. Writing is pre-industrial it doesn't require modern society to do. That's probably why I like it. Is it 8 quid to go to the cinema now; just look at the number of people's efforts you are buying? It makes that 25 pence fine at the library look like a right rip off. Maybe I should think of it as a private lapdance rather than cabaret? Primal versus organised and cynical? Hmmm the book might be mass produced but that author’s thought wasn't. What a writer does today is pretty rare and worth having, thank goodness I don't have to stuff each page with fivers.