Before he set out, he asked if he could borrow one of my books to take with him and could I recommend something. I gave him Paul Theroux’s “Happy Isles of Oceania”, and off he went.

And, a few weeks later, back he came. As did my book. A little the worse for wear, dog-eared cover, broken spine, pages yellowed from exposure to the elements, smelling of the sea, of salt, you wouldn’t pay fifty cents for this book from a market stall.

I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind at all. It was still in one piece. It could still be read. It was still a “book”. And back on the shelf it went. With all the other books.

A backpacker who stayed at that flat a few months, he’d been hauling himself around the world for the better part of a year and along for the ride with him was a much battered and tatty copy of “War & Peace”, held together by a couple rubber bands. It too could still be read. It too was still a “book”.

Try this …

Take a book, an old paperback that doesn’t mean much and throw it up against a wall. Grab it with both hands and slam it down on a table. Drop it from a 5^th floor balcony onto the sidewalk* below.

It’s still a book. If the pages fall out, they’re numbered, put them back where they belong and wrap a rubber band around the covers to keep them in place. It’s still a book. It can still be read.

Now try doing that with a Kindle.

Whenever I hear or read about some new gadget that’s supposed to be paving the way to a Brave New World or reinventing a perfectly good wheel, I’m always reminded of this brief speech from Mike Leigh’s 1993 film, “Naked”, spoken by the main character, Johnny (David Thewlis) …

“That’s the trouble with everybody – you’re all so bored. You’ve had nature explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the living body explained to you and you’re bored with it, you’ve had the universe explained to you and you’re bored with it, so now you want cheap thrills and plenty of them, and it doesn’t matter how tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it’s new as long as it’s new, as long as it flashes and fuckin’ bleeps in forty fuckin’ different colors.”

Here is a book I own. Here is another.

Even these books, large format though they are, cannot convey the staggering impact of Salgado’s work when seen full-size, at a gallery. But on a Kindle? Give it up.

I am not a Luddite.

But the book, as it is now, is an astonishing piece of technology. All you need to effect communication with a book is yourself and it. No charger, no battery, no plugs or passwords to access it. Just you and it.

A Kindle is a device for which you pay several hundred dollars, and for the price, this device will allow you to … read a book. A book for which you have also paid money.

B’doi, b’der.

I’m sure the Kindle and other readers of its type will find their niche. The secondary and tertiary educational market, for example. Periodicals, newspapers, academic journals and texts, and long out-of-print barely-noticed-when-they-were-in-print obscurities would be well served by this new format. Things that most people (excepting crazy old cat ladies) wouldn’t be much inclined to keep on a shelf once they’ve fulfilled their purpose.

And porn. For the articles, of course.

At the recent launch of the University of Adelaide Press, J.M. Coetzee had this (PDF) to say …

“ … We have arrived at a real crisis in academic publishing. University presses are going to dwindle and in many cases fold unless they turn to the cheaper option of electronic publishing. Similarly, for scholars in the humanities and social sciences, particularly scholars at the beginning of their career, the choice is more and more going to be between putting out the books they write in electronic format or not publishing in book form at all.”

He makes a fine point and a great deal of sense.

But for those of us who read for pleasure, I can’t quite see the advantage of a Kindle or any other type of electronic reader over a simple book. Is it necessary? Must we be forever told that every thing we accumulate over the course of our lives, books, movies, music, be held in one place on one thing and that this is a good thing and desirable?

I quite like having shelves at home with lots of these things on them. I quite like visiting friends who have shelves in their homes with things like these on them. It beats staring at a bunch of vases.

Like I said, I’m not a Luddite. I enjoy technology and what it brings as far as information, news, entertainment are concerned. And even though the internet harbours many things that are truly horrific in nature and often quite deranged, as far as I’m concerned, the good of it far outweighs the bad.

But I won’t be rushing out anytime soon to buy a Kindle or an eReader, no matter how breathlessly they get hyped. I don’t want my books to “flash and fuckin’ bleep in forty fuckin’ different colors” at me.

I’d rather just pick one off a shelf and read it.

* American expression for “footpath”. Tough shit, pedantic language Nazis.

… more essential reading than ever.

His years-old “book” (can a collection of newspaper columns really be called a book?), on the other hand, was apparently not essential reading for one previous owner who gave or sold it to a second-hand book shop in Richmond where Ant Rogenous and I, along with a fellow Groupthinker, found it one day. Torn as to where the book should actually be displayed, we took some photos of said book in various sections of the store to see how it looked.

Children/early readers:

Humour:

Mythology:

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Have at it!

For example, there’s this one guy who made a living pushing a ball around a paddock with his foot and had some substance abuse issues and allegedly roughed up his girlfriend who has “written” a book just to let people know he is not a deadshit.

His name is Wayne. He’s misunderstood, that’s all, and it hurts. It hurts real bad. Poor Wayne.

There’s this woman who married a fat bloke and fucked him till he got caught for killing people. She’s “written” a book about it just in case people had the wrong impression and thought less of her because of her lifestyle choices. She too would like everyone to know that she is not a deadshit.

Her name is Roberta. She’s misunderstood, that’s all, just another true-blue little Aussie battler trying to make a go of things and it hurts. Poor Roberta.

Then there’s this other guy. His name is Mick Gatto. Just because he used to hang around with crooks and do God-only-knows-what for a living, doesn’t mean Mick is a deadshit.

So Mick has “written” a book too. To let everyone know he’s just very misunderstood. Poor Mick.

Nowadays, Mick is thought of as Australia’s answer to Sam Giancana.

Australia’s answer to “The Grapes of Wrath” is “The Castle”, just in case you need a little perspective on that. Australia’s answer to David Attenborough is Steve Irwin if you need a little more. Australia’s answer to Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would probably be a couple of teenage shoplifters in fucking Minto.

Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) has always prided itself on publishing works of literature. Which is to say, books that are actually written by the person whose name is on the cover.

Fuck that for a joke.

Because it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s had the misfortune to hear any of these three “so-not-deadshits” speak publicly that none of them could probably write the word “penis” on a toilet wall without a spellcheck and an editor present.

So, bugger the literature, we’re pulping the lot, tearing up all our contracts, and putting the freaks up front.

We’ve decided to hire three ghostwriters on a permanent, rotating-shift basis and set them about the writing of books about deadshits who’ve never actually done much or achieved anything of lasting worth for anyone’s benefit other than their own and who never shut up about it.

We’re calling this series “Deadshit Dialogues” and currently have 24 “books” slated for publication during 2010, all of which will be entitled “My Life” just to keep things nice and simple for the common folk.

We here at Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) are confident that our brave new publishing initiative will bring about a much needed revolution in the book industry in these troubled times. Which is to say, the continuing publication of stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of books by and about a whole bunch of “who the fuck?” deadshits who deserve to be known and understood by squillions. That’s what they say, anyway.

So you can take “Dreams From My Father” and shove it up your arse.

Why on earth would anyone want to read about some random fucker who became the first African-American President of the United States when you can read all about the life and times of an aging and overweight ex-boxer who used to hang around with crooks in pubs and cafes pretending to be characters from a Mario Puzo novel?

That’s real life, that is. You think you know what real life is all about? You don’t know jack shit.

But now, courtesy of Groupthink Books Ltd (a wholly owned subsidiary of Groupthink Industries & Holdings Incorporated) new “Deadshit Dialogues” series, you can read all about real life and get yourself some right and proper learnings fixed to your learnin’ organ (that spongy thing inside your head, up on top).

Because books about people who actually achieve things in life aren’t worth a pinch of shit, quite frankly.