The Paradox of Writing

"The paradox lies in the fact that the deadness of the text, its removal from the living human lifeworld, its rigid visual fixity, assures its endurance and its potential for being resurrected into limitless living contexts by a potentially infinite number of living readers." --Walter Ong, "Orality and Literacy: Writing Restructures Consciousness"

The Advent of the Unwritten Book in the New Atlantis

"The Book contained all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, according as you have them ... and the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament, which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the Book."

The Cyrus Cylinder: Historical Object and Emblem

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, traces 2600 years of Middle Eastern history through the Cyrus Cylinder:

New Form of an Old Icebreaker

At the end of Mary Shelley's apocalyptic novel The Last Man, a story of the future told from ancient Sibylline leaves, the last man sets off in a boat with "scant stores" and "a few books." If you were the last human, what books would you select?

For the Record

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From Gutenberg to Gruenewald

More on the Bible App and YouVersion, from “The New Roman Roads: Technology and Bible Reading” (HuffPost): 

Several Bible publishers and license holders, however, have allowed sites such as YouVersion and BibleGateway to publish their versions digitally since they have found it has not hindered print sales, but has actually increased them and provided broad network of promotion.

From Ebooks to Networked Books

Hugh McGuire asks: What is the difference between an ebook and the internet? Ebooks can be made to look like print books, but they are more like the internet. The best future for the book would be p+e+i. E.g., YouVersion:­ a “Bible App [that] allows users to read the Bible, share verses with their social networks, bookmark their favorite passages, and more.”

Here is McGuire's TEDx Montreal talk, “The Blurring Lines Between Books and the Internet”: