Remember when our music choices were limited to vinyl or the radio?

If you liked a song or a musician, you bought their whole album.

The thing is, then you had to listen to every song on the album.

But that’s what was great about them.

Of course, you could move the needle to the groove where your song lived.

But you spent hard-earned cash on the 12- or 13-song album.

You weren’t about to waste money by only listening to one song.

Then a funny thing probably happened: You discovered another song or two that you liked—as much as or even better than your favorite.

You would never have known about those other amazing songs if you hadn’t listened to the whole album.

Now we have Apple music.

We buy one song at a time by an artist.

But what about all their other songs that they toiled over to add to their…what do we even call it now?

Their library?

Their CD?

Their platform?

I guess we still call it an album.

As in music, so in literature?

I don’t read or write dystopian, doomsday novels, but my mind spins, especially lately.

I’m not worried so much about AI replacing writers, making us obsolete.

I’m worried about readers becoming nonreaders and making us obsolete. (Here’s a crazy fact: A 2023 survey discovered that 46% of adults in the US had not read a single book in the previous year. What’s that even like? How do they get through their day?)

Will we ever get to a place in time when readers only want one very short-form story–one track–from great writers like JK Rowling or Kate DiCamillo or Katherine Rundell, instead of a meaty novel?

No more series to anticipate and sink your teeth into.

Too bad about Charles Dickens or Victor Hugo or Emily Bronte—they’re just too wordy…no one will read them anymore.

Will readers ever stop reading?

Maybe they’ll only listen.

Or maybe they won’t even do that.

How will stories evolve and grow in that new landscape?

Pamphlets?

Brochure-sized stories?

Wandering storytellers as in days of olde when stories were only word-of-mouth?

One-hundred-word flash fiction?

Tiny stories downloaded directly into readers’ brains?

Maybe publishers will bring back novel serialization. (Dickens, you can come back now.)

Things change.

The world changes.

Change isn’t necessarily bad.

It’s just different.

What specifically would you hate to see go by the wayside if books disappear?

I just finished reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which was serialized and made into a TV program.

I dog-eared so many pages in this book because of the ideas the words inspired in me, because of the beauty of the narrative language, because of the intriguing way a character is presented.

Package that story for TV and you’ve lost so much.

Sure, you have the story, but at the expense of the other reasons writers write and readers read.

Where do you see us headed in terms of physical, digital and audible books?

What would you do with yourself if you had nothing to read or write?

If we become what we actively do, then the only way to remain a society where books are wanted and appreciated is to read them.

Summer is lolling in front of us.

What books are on your TBR list?

What books are on your kids’ lists?

Enjoy your week.

Gail

(Tick tock)

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