Subscribe RSSAS I WRITE THIS I am resting my keyboard on my lap on a book.
It is a copy of Truffaut on Hitchcock that my mum bought second-hand from a library, read, and then gave to me. I feel, therefore, that it is necessary to apologise to Mssr Truffaut not only for the scandalous misuse of the book - although I can advise him that it is a triumph of both form and function - but also for preventing his estate from making more money on it.
It has just cost me more to phone my mum to ask her how much she paid for it than the money she handed over in the first place. Which she tells me, was a scandalous 20p. I think that perhaps the library owes you an apology too, Monsieur artiste.
But, how people use books and how they move around will always be up for debate. Anyone who has ever travelled or tackled a short table leg will attest to this, but now we have a new debate. Who loses out when books go digital?
According to Macmillan, one of the six big publishing houses, we all do. Just days after Steve Jobs announced that Macmillan books would be available on the Ipad, Macmillan met with Amazon to discuss a new sales agreement. Apparently the meeting did not go very well at all.
