The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control

by Ted Striphas

Ted Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead. From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities. Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Writing, Books About Books, School

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2009

Reviews

[Krazykiwi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a charming book, which I just wrote a nice review for and then closed the page. Doh.

It covers the history of "Print Culture" for more or less the past century, from the first rise of what we now call the "trad publisher" over the small private press, through to the early 2000's with the big box book store and the Oprah Book Club and the early days of Amazon. There's a pretty good look at the real effect that big book store chains like Barnes and Noble had on indie bookstores (apparently, remarkably little, despite all the naysaying and gloom). Amazon on the other hand, is probably going to kill off both, as well as trad pub.

There's also a look at the "taste leader" phenomenon, writ large and personified by Oprah. Now this I found interesting, because it's a wonderful example. Just because a book blogger or GR or BL reviewer's reach isn't Oprah-sized, doesn't mean the same basic dynamics don't come into play.

It's really nicely written, easy to read, and I can quite recommend it if you can find a copy. Like anything involving people and technology, it's going to date, but as a snapshot and history of a time when big print publishing owned the world, it's pretty comprehensive.

Half a star off for being US-centric and apparently not noticing. I don't mind if you want to hog the baseball, just don't say you're having a world series, you know? If you're US focussed in an academic text, just be up front and say so.

But it is, overall, quite a fun read.

And I'm still quite enamoured of the little section I used as a status update earlier, below.

Reading progress update: I've read 35 out of 187 pages.

Regarding early publishing industry attempts to discourage library borrowing:

Among Bernays’s more intriguing strategies to “increase the market for good books” was to have his institute sponsor a contest in the spring of 1931 “to look for a pejorative word for the book borrower, the wretch who raised hell with book sales and deprived authors of earned royalties.” Bernays drew his inspiration for the contest from another term that had been introduced into the American English lexicon in 1924, namely, “scofflaw,” which originally referred to a “‘lawless drinker’ of illegally made or illegally obtained liquor.” To judge the contest Bernays convened a panel of three well-known New York City book critics: Harry Hansen (of the New York World-Telegram), Burton Rascoe (formerly of the New York Herald-Tribune), and J. C. Grey (of the New York Sun). Among the thousands of entries they considered were terms like “book weevil,” “borrocole,” “greader,” “libracide,” “booklooter,” “bookbum,” “bookkibitzer,” “culture vulture,” “greeper,” “bookbummer,” “bookaneer,” “blifter,” “biblioacquisiac,” and “book buzzard.” The winner? “Book sneak,” entered by Paul W. Stoddard, a high school English teacher from Hartford, Connecticut."

I kind of like the idea of being bookaneer or a biblioacquisiac :)

[Jyv · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book hard to follow. My eyes kept glazing over. Perhaps it's because of the current chaos in my private life or perhaps I just didn't like the writer's style. I skipped most of the book. I just wasn't getting the point.

[farmwifetwo · Rating 1 out of 5]

2016, it's already dated. I got as far as pg 30 and never got to it again . Very dry read. Others may find it interesting but so far there was little that hasn't been in other articles over the years.

[Pratiksha · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I am not a fan of philosophical (or academic) meandering that coerces the reader to join the dots between the author's arguments, this book gradually sucked me in. Striphas uncovers the invisible labor that has allowed book-reading to become a culturally romanticized hobby. Western capitalism's inherently colonizing instinct & the popular debates that legitimize it have been traced with careful detail. Harry Potter & The Culture of the Copy is an eye-opening chapter. It contextualizes the intricate ties between the imperialist complicity in contemporary global power imbalances and unbridled, corporate greed. Discovering the grimy underbelly of corporate publishing is not fun for those of us who live to read, but it's worse to turn a blind eye to the exploitative practices of an industry that we regularly patronize.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must admit that while there were parts of this book I found enjoyable, not least the author's interest in the logistics of books and of attempts to control contents of the books by rights holders, that the main value of this book for a reader such as myself is to clue one in one some of the language of Marxist analysis.  Ultimately, this is a book where the author's opinions are biased and fairly transparently leftist, and where the real benefit is to provide insight into the sort of language that leftists use when they are writing about something.  Throughout the book the author tries to argue that he is not considering print culture to be obsolete even if there is a crisis of confidence among the culture at large when it comes to the fate of books.  But just as Marxists referred to the "late age of capitalism" during the time of the Soviet Union, the author's reference to the contemporary period as "the late age of print" is clearly a sign that he is approaching the publishing business from a leftist political slant and wishes to comment on its obsolescence.  

This book is a bit short of 200 pages and is divided into five chapters and several sections within each chapter.  The author begins with acknowledgements and an introduction that talks about "bottom lines," "edges," and "sites" when it comes to what he considers the late age of print.  After that comes a chapter about ebooks and the digital future, which talks about the definition of a book, concerns about shelving eboooks, book sneaks, disappearing data, and different stories to tell (1).  After that comes a chapter that looks at the big-box bookstore blues not as a cause of the troubles in the book business but a result of them (2).  The author speaks of the joys of trying to bring bookland online, with a look at coding and ISBN numbers and the issue of logistics (3).  After this comes a discussion of the Oprah Book Club and what it seeks to offer to its mostly female readers (4) in terms of encouragement and realism.  A chapter about Harry Potter and the culture of the copy and the author's own critical view of J.K. Rowling's own (lack of) originality follows (5), after which the book concludes with a discussion about the move from consumerism to control along with notes and an index.

This book is a classic example of a case where someone chooses great material to write about but who is hampered by a lack of transparency about his worldview.  On the one hand, the author seeks to differentiate himself from those who would mindlessly troll the Oprah Book Club or big box stores like Barnes & Noble.  Likewise, the author shows an obvious interest in the questions of the logistics of shipping books and also attempting to manage the dates when books go on sale so as to reduce the tendency of people to take advantage of rolling release times and international shipping to get products sooner than the company wants.  The author also demonstrates the way that rights holders have been particularly aggressive about seeking to keep anyone else from doing what writers have done since time immemorial in adapting previous writings and in slightly changing them by infusing one's own creativity into shared universes and stories.  Overall, this book demonstrates in a variety of ways the sort of insecurity that is faced by companies that sell books in one way or another about how to make money off of books as a commodity and also prevent others from making money off of their products through resale or through derivative works.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't yet finished this but so far Striphas has taken an approach that is original as far as my own experience of reading about publishing and book culture has gone. Rather than taking a position on the right or wrong conclusions reached by people invested in the debates over the value of ebooks, bookstore superstores vs. indie shops, etc., he digs into the backstory of production, distribution, promotion, and assigned values that goes into making, selling, buying, and reading books (although his focus is not really on reading but on how people perceive its worth and therefore their own as buyers and owners of books). His chapter on superstores and whether they are the main reasons indie stores are really driven out of business was really interesting. He went into the history of one community and its Barnes and Noble, located between Durham and Chapel Hill in North Carolina's research triangle, and how the history of the area and concerns of the people in the two communities played out in establishing it. Durham, a more working-class area with a higher African-American population, used the establishment of the store as a way to address racial inequities and build a tax base, while the more educated and higher income residents of Chapel Hill opposed it for environmental and anti-chain store concerns. Striphas also examined claims that chain stores were driving indie stores out of business by examining indivdual stores' economic, social, and place-driven issues (like people who stopped shopping at one store when the building owners started charging for parking). Striphas calls the approach he's taking a "cultural studies" approach but his focus on labor and production suggests he's at least using Marxist techniques of analysis. He doesn't really take a position on what's right or wrong but does seem to be more interested in a descriptive approach. It feels less like he is telling a narrative story and more like he is exploring these related topics from multiple angles, going both deeply (on a micro level) and broadly (extrapolating from looking at multiple micro-level situations) rather than skimming the surface and leaving book culture's assumptions untouched. My one frustration so far is that he does not focus at all on the role of libraries except to describe them in passing as part of "pass-through" reading culture. Even though he does not claim to be writing an exhaustive work this seems like a major omission. Maybe it will be addressed in the next few chapters, but these appear to focus on online bookselling, celebrity book clubs, and Harry Potter, so I'm not expecting it. Given that it takes a somewhat unusual and academic approach, I find it compelling and readable. It's also relatively brief and after a couple of hours I'm about halfway through. If you are interested in a new look at book culture and one that doesn't necessarily reinforce your existing beliefs this is a great choice.

[John Jaksich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Critical History of Print Books

The twentieth century ushered printed books as the means for the middle class to attain wealth parity with the wealthier high brow individuals. That mindset of depression era US society eventually set the stage for book boom of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Border's books. While present 21st century sensibilities are giving way e-publishing, the notion that books can liberate the mind has not disappeared. But, keeping up with the Jones's by owning books is replaced by Computer apps that give access to all the books once reserved for the educated, have given way to piracy of bestsellers and
intellectual property. We stand at a crossroads in the publishing world.

[Cioran · Rating 5 out of 5]

A worthy sequel to The English Common Reader by Altick.

[Brandon Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Late Age of Print, Ted Striphas sets his main approach as a nuanced examination of American book culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In doing so, he challenges crisis discourses and laments for the loss of books. Striphas presents a well written, accessible, anecdotal, and effective critique of ideologies behind consumption, control, and transformations in American book culture.

Much of this study relies on the cultural history that Striphas establishes from the outset, emphasizing "the history and conditions by which books have become ubiquitous and mundane social artifacts in and of our own time" (4). By charting book culture from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, Striphas lays out "a changed and changing mode of production; new technological products and processes; shifts in law and jurisprudence; the proliferation of culture and the rise of cultural politics; and a host of sociological transformations, among many other factors" (5). He does so by focusing on various aspects of American consumerism, the book industry, legal history, media relationships, all circulating around attitudes about the value of books in the everyday. With these topics as the mainstay themes of the book, Striphas takes up the topics of American bibliophilia, digital media, big-box bookstores (especially Barnes and Noble), online marketing (especially Amazon.com), Oprah's Book Club, and Harry Potter--all centerpieces of his cultural examinations.

Ultimately, he demonstrates, through several case studies, "how printed books and electronic media can complement one another" through a type of "synergy" in culture (188). Yet he does not insist on ignoring the transformations that have taken place and will continue to occur. He equally insists that consumers must be aware of the ways in which control--by the industry, marketers, publishers, as well as consumers and various aspects of popular culture--underpin the most important facets of book culture. Indeed, the polemical features of Striphas's book emphasize the need for continual reconsideration of these issues to best understand the various complexities of intermedial relationships. This is particularly the case for his approach to intellectual rights laws in a global economy and with emergent digital concerns. All of this is offered with well-balanced and salient critiques of the past, the present, and the future.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some interesting ideas in the pages of this book, but the chapters felt a little too disparate to work together. This isn't a book about how print is dying but evolving, which is a strong thesis that is carried throughout the book. It is refreshing to read how things such as the big box stores, Harry Potter and the Oprah book club should be sign of interest in reading in America (I am glad Striphas pointed out that the argument really should be that people aren't reading the "right" things, and certain types of books aren't selling as well as the once did). So the title is a little off and the author takes time to explain the reasons why the book has that title. The five chapters take on some of the cultural events that are changing book publishing and connects them to changes in the industry in the early 20th century. The first chapter takes on the boogeyman of e-books, the second big box retailers, the third online booksellers, the fourth is all about Oprah and the last is on a boy wizard, fan fiction and copyright. Each chapter is worth reading for those in that particular part of the industry: chapter 1- rights and epub; 2- sales; 3- sales and marketing; 4- marketing and publicity; 5- rights IP, contracts and legal. But overall, the chapters are too distinct from one another so the book doesn't feel cohesive. There's strong research throughout and Stiphas points out some of the underlying reasons for general marketing from the publishing industry (ebook piracy is the new dangers of library copies is the new book sneak. Everyone should buy their own copy of a book for cultural not economic reasons- the Industry).

I am not very interested in Oprah or her book club or the marketing power or the way publicists and authors see O as the magic bullet, but I found the chapter on the book club an interesting essay on how the book choices are really about class distinction in terms of reading and that is part of the argument that reading is at risk.

The bottom line is that if you are in the industry, this probably has a chapter or two that are worth reading, but I can't see sitting down and reading the whole thing. A good reference book for schools that have publishing faculty.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The strengths of Striphas' book are many, probably more than my rating gives it credit for. Striphas not only provides four thorough accounts of what the contemporary state of the book is, but goes further to suggest that such evidence demonstrates the longevity of print is far from over. However, despite his abilities to argue compellingly about topics as varied as Oprah's book club to Harry Potter piracy, his introduction and conclusion don't go far enough to relate the disparate subjects of his book together. Instead, his focus in these sections seems more directed toward defining what his book will not do (predict the demise of the book, celebrate the joys of reading etc.). While it is certainly important for any book history text to situate itself with regard to such common tropes, I had hoped that this book would go further to suggest a new path for book history scholarship. Instead, it marries together four historically-grounded topics, each of which contribute to various elements of the field without ever really moving it forward to a different place.

[Dirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book on contemporary history of books. It counters the argument that new media replace books and make the activity of reading disappear. Instead people are encouraged by new media and television to read, e.g. Optah's book club, and develop new ways to embed reading in their everyday lives. Striphas also elaborates on some recent developments such as ereaders that allow book merchants like amazon and publishers access to books on people's devices.

I would have loved to read more about people's reading behaviour and how it is impacted by ereaders and social media. Maybe Striphas will write a book on that next?

I would recommend the book to sociologists and marketing scholars as well as t everybody interested in contemporary culture and technology.

[Kamal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with many other readers of this book in that it seems to be lacking something. While very informative, it does lack any meaningful commentary about the future of books. Perhaps this is the authors intention. However, it reads like a bunch of disparate academic conference papers strung together with flimsy ligatures. It's easy to enjoy each chapter on its own, but the book as a whole is incoherent. Also, as others have noted, the final concluding chapter is a lazily written repetition of the intro.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had trouble getting into this text, as the intro and early parts of the book are a bit dense with academic-talk to cover the author's thesis and reasons for collecting what seems to be five-six sections of a class (turned into essay chapters).

Still, the information in this book is essential for many wondering about how the current problems of publishing and book selling came about and what might be done about them.

Informative and at times fascinating, though albeit for a limited audience of people interested in books at the professional end.

[Mike Violano · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book has some interesting facts and tidbits it reads more like a series of digressions rather than a coherent case on the current state of books and publishing. A virtual stampede of footnotes make for a well-documented but not a well written study.
I did learn a few things like the fact that American publishers pirated European works until the US recognized international copyright in 1891. The chapter on the pirating and counterfeiting of Harry Potter was best section of the book.

[Karin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for a graduate class...it is academic in nature and not one I probably would have read just to read. I understand why this book was a winner of the outstanding book award from the National Communication Association. Striphas makes excellent connections between the thought and practicality of book culture. The introduction and conclusion chapters were fantastic and I was able to make connections to rhetorical theory. This one will stay on my shelf.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of this book were interesting but certain sections, such as the one regarding Harry Potter and piracy, were skimmers. That last chapter seemed quite repetitive.

From a more personal point-of-view, the book wasn't particularly useful with regards to my masters' paper, but at least it gave me some ideas for other sources to look into.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting discussions of various aspects of contemporary book culture, from Oprah's book club to the tightly controlled release of Harry Potter books and movies. I'm going to review it for Information Today, September 2009 issue.

[Ryan Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an immensely enjoyable book, especially the chapter on Oprah. Compelling reading for anyone in the industry.

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

good case studies on the political economy of book publishing and reading.

[John Tintera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for everyone in book publishing! It dispelled many myths for me and gave me a health sense of optimism for the industry.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shamelessly academic tone but once you trudge past that, it rewards you with a thorough and critical text.

[Laura McKeever · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, kind of long winded though. Good points.