December 6, 2007

What Constitutes a Book?

Sparked by Cooper Renner’s Kindle query (and Deron Bauman’s PS), ‘Flockers got to speculating concerning The Book: Its Nature and Its Future. And I got to thinking about what exactly qualifies as a book.

Renner_stone_book_20070710.jpg
Stone book. Photograph by Cooper Renner. 10 July 2007.

Is it a book if it’s carved in stone?


Last summer Renner visited Alan Garner, author of The Stone Book Quartet, and photographed the actual stone book that inspired Garner’s work of imagination. Garner’s artifact, along with others, features in The Stone Book, an illustrated transcript of a recent interview with Newcastle (Australia) University Archivist Gionni Di Gravio.

(Special bonus: A comment from Alan Garner wherein he rethinks a conclusion concerning the stone book in his possession.)

Is it a book if it’s carved in stone?

posted by in books, technology | * | 5 comments 

comments

  1. Cooper on December 6th, 2007 at 2:01 pm

    Thanks for posting this. Cool information. Thou rockest.

  2. Sheila Ryan on December 6th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    As thou dost rock, and so Alan Garner.

  3. Fletch on December 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm

    The stone book comes down to the question of form vs. function. The stone book might have the form of a book, but not be a book in the same way that Michelangelo’s David looks like a person without being a person.

    Then again, if the stone is marked with communicative symbols, it might qualify to be a book.

    One thing that it is not is a codex, since there are no bound leaves, only stone faces.

  4. Deron Bauman on December 6th, 2007 at 11:55 pm

    what’s the battery life on that thing?

  5. alek on December 8th, 2007 at 1:12 am

    yes but is it an i-book?


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