I am in awe of the power of the written word; and my first exposure to the written word was in books. My father and the Catholic priests of my boarding school taught me to love books. The school library was a sanctuary. I travelled the world in books. In places like India and London, I found boys that behaved like me. I immersed myself in cultures that would have been alien without the powerful pull of books. I will never forget my first visit to London. I kept seeing places that had appeared to me before in books. As a precocious boy, the only way to keep me still was to hand me a book.
The world has changed from my childhood days. These days when I am reading a book, I resist the urge to click on a word; I see the Internet anywhere. Technology has radically redefined how I access ideas. I am not a fan of electronic readers like the spindle. I view them as inchoate and primitive. However, I believe that the iPad and its subsequent reincarnations are going to spell the end of the book. In the West, the library as we know it is preparing to go on life support; actually it is already dead and now they call the reincarnation a media centre. My daughter does not understand why we built a library in our community. She says the books should all fit in a laptop. Think about how children now live and it will give you digital pause. It is true that the book is not going away anytime soon but it is dying. There are opportunities for writers and thinkers to sell their ideas on the new formats especially in the ubiquitous smartphones of Africa. People might just read us if we put our thoughts on a Nokia. Now, that’s a brilliant thought.
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