The Cover
Lauren Jackson January 28, 2013 Response: Reading 2 & Reading 2.1
Both “Hack the Cover” and “The Photo Book Will Rise Again” focused on the metaphorical death of the book and of the book cover. Virtual technology now allows an overflow of information, putting the importance of the cover and the book itself on the backburner. Kindles, iPads, and even just the internet allows readers to skip holding the physical book, skip opening the cover, and jump right into the text or images of the book. Alan Rapp, the author of “The Photo Book Will Rise Again” illuminates the specific audience of the photo book. Because of the high quality of photo books, the costs are also high. The cost, as well as the subject of photo books, limits the population of people who will buy photo books. This is something I have thought about many times. I would love to buy photo books because I believe they will always be interesting to look at and that they will also last forever, but I simply do not have the means to buy these books. Instead, I find myself resorting to using the Internet to look at the photographs of great photographers. In general, I dislike reading or looking at things on the Internet. I do not like the idea of seeing everything through a screen. Craig Mod brought up several points about the physical book that I agree with; the book confronts you with its cover, forcing you to pick it up and engage, and the cover starts a thread that continues throughout the book. Kindles and iPads, do not confront you. They are screens that constantly change, and turn the cover into little more than a thumbnail. By missing the cover, people are missing a whole component of the book. Even thinking about reading the test of these two articles online is somewhat upsetting to me. Reading something on the Internet is not the same as reading something in print. Mod ends on the final idea of nostalgia. And I truly hope that nostalgia may bring back the book and the cover. People in my generation have grown up only with screens, and they have little novelty to me. Screens are necessary and unexciting, but books, books are a luxury and refreshing.