Anne Carson's 'Nox: An Epitaph for My Brother' (New Directions Press)

In the last year, U.S. publisher New Directions released two irresistible books: Nox: An Epitaph for my Brother, by Canadian poet and classicist Anne Carson, and Microscripts, by Swiss modernist writer Robert Walser. They’re irresistible by virtue of their content, of course, but also their presentation: Nox is a striking accordion of a book, made up of photographs, drawings, and anecdotes printed on a giant strip of paper folded into just under 200 pages, and housed in a beautiful box. And Microscripts, one of a handful of Walser’s works recently made available in agile translations by Susan Bernofsky, collects 25 microscripts—short pieces Walser wrote in his unique, shrunken-down shorthand—reproduced on narrow strips of paper in full colour, along with more legible translations. These books are beautiful, sophisticated, and most of all, fun. Fun to touch, fun to read, fun to share and give away.

They’re also a merciful reprieve from the current gloomy atmosphere of the book business, which lately has been stuck on repeat, obsessed with the spread of e-books. Book-industry and mainstream media alike have perpetuated a conversation in which the discussion of books has been replaced by a lament for them.

To be clear: e-books are great, and getting better. As standards rise and technical knowledge spreads, e-books will only become more relevant—more experiential, interactive, engaging, and innovative. But as we’ve seen in the music industry, the shift to mass-market digital has also spurred a return to small print-run, high-quality physical editions—vinyl LPs, special editions, original artwork. The growing ubiquity and quality of e-books doesn’t need to come at the expense of the quality of print. We can have better-produced books all around.

Recently, a coalition of small Canadian publishers launched the Handmade Campaign, which aims to promote books with exceptional production values. Featured titles include Migration Songs by Anna Quon (Invisible Publishing), The Sleep of Four Cities by Jen Currin (Anvil Press), and Lisa Robertson’s Magenta Soul Whip by Lisa Robertson (Coach House Books). These publishers continue to release high-quality print editions of their books, using textured cover stock and paper and superior typesetting, while also making them available in digital form. In doing so, they’re meeting two very distinct needs: permanence, tactility, and quality on one hand, and ease of access on the other. These two market demands are coexisting, not mutually exclusive. The growing prevalence of e-books should pave the way for an increase in demand for, and availability of, handcrafted, limited-edition book objects. As readers have greater digital access to a greater number of titles, including longburied back-catalogue and public-domain titles, they will become choosier about what they want to give shelf room in their homes.

These days, I find myself acquiring new books in one of three ways: from friends, from the library, or from digital retailers like Kobo, the e-reader backed mainly by Indigo Books & Music. When I’m smitten with a book—whether because of the story or the design—I’ll go out and buy the print edition for my shelf. I’m not buying fewer books; in fact, in some cases, I’m buying the same book twice. I’m building a collection, and I’d prefer that it be comprised of beautiful artifacts, not $10 mass-market paperbacks.

The new world of e-books presents an opportunity for publishers, not a limitation. As Kassia Krozser wrote in a July 2010 post on publishing blog Booksquare, “Print becomes more valuable when it becomes less disposable.” E-books can be used as a way to facilitate different release schedules by allowing publishers to introduce titles as limited-edition advance releases, or responding to the popularity of certain e-books by issuing post-publication collectors’ editions.

Compared to most other forms of entertainment, books are terribly cheap. Let’s use some of the conversation about e-books to reopen the door to a more mainstream appreciation of and dialogue about beautiful print editions—to redevelop a wider appreciation of books instead of bemoaning a change that’s inevitable. The fight between the two isn’t really a fight: given the choice between print and digital books, I choose both.

IDEA MAN

It always makes me wild with rage when the complexities of a federal election are idiotically reduced to a single issue for voters. The major parties, and the mainstream media, seem to assume that people have the attention span of three-year-olds.

Then along comes Jack Layton’s Speaking Out: Ideas That Work for Canadians, explaining multi-faceted, economically sound solutions to our biggest problems: health care, hydro, tuition, industries, you name it.

While Layton can’t help but write from the perspective of the leader of the NDP, this book is not the NDP Orange Book. It’s not a list of Layton’s own ideas and accomplishments or a collection of essays. Nor is it an elegant piece of persuasive writing.

What it is, however, is a list of “best practices,” independent of any particular party, taken from home and abroad. The barrage of ideas can, at times, be overwhelming. Doubtless, many will dismiss these ideas as naïve or simple. But, their simplicity is their strength. Regardless of political affiliation, Canadians owe it to themselves to read this book.

Although a former academic, Layton wisely combines the research and analytical skills of his political science PhD with the hands-on community approach of his political experience. The ideas aren’t full-length studies, backed by statistics, but they are considered and convincing: for example, ordinary people can understand how a “green car” industrial strategy brought together such seemingly odd bedfellows as Layton, the Canadian Auto Workers union, Greenpeace and an MP from Windsor. How money spent on health promotion can have a bigger payoff than money spent on treatment. Or how investing in affordable housing will save us money.

God forbid, long-term planning? Optimism? Faith in the powers of ordinary people? This guy can’t be a politician.
— Sue McCluskey

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I know you are but what am I? by Heather Birrell (Coach House Books)FICTION

Time and again in this nine-story collection, Birrell weaves patterns of flashbacks, walk-on characters, best-ever similes (an airplane window like an eyelid), and—most importantly—struggling, complicated protagonists. This creates little universes that are both vast and intimate. “Not Quite Casablanca” and “Congratulations, Really” are particularly wonderful. Too often, though, there is a paragraph near the end in which the protagonist ruminates over the diverse threads that have made up the story, reminding readers that they’ve been reading a story, an artifice, all along. Even so, I will read this book again, and soon; Birrell has a talent matched by few others for tapping the rich details of our experience. (A note to the designer: the book’s cover does it a disservice.)
—Adam Lewis Schroeder

Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity by Lawrence Lessig (Penguin Press)NON-FICTION

Every movement needs an inspirational figure, someone able to both set the terms of debate and lead by example. The “free culture” movement has found its leader in the unlikely person of Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig. He has been arguing for years that the internet is on its way to becoming the most highly regulated place on Earth. In his new book, Lessig takes on “Big Copyright,” the system of cultural ownership that has given copyright-rich corporations an unprecedented degree of control over popular culture. The copyright wars are shaping up as the civil rights issue of this decade, and Lawrence Lessig is the one setting the agenda.
—Andrew Potter

Viral Suite by Mari-Lou Rowley (Anvil Press)POETRY

It is rare to see science and poetry mixed as seamlessly as they are in Mari-Lou Rowley’s Viral Suite, but not surprising for Rowley, a science and technology writer. The linguistic gymnastics and energy of the verse is at its best when she combines the world of physics, mathematics and molecular biology with real physicality; as in the third section, “Elucidata.” Visceral gems such as “Sex in Space Time” allow language and image to do their work without interference from the empirical voice, “For the same reason the earth revolves around/ the sun, a hand falling through any arc of/ air will choose the swelling mass of thigh/ over nothing, for warmth/ for meaning.”
—Rajinderpal S. Pal

Sue McCluskey is a writer, editor and country and western musician. She blushes easily.

Andrew Potter belongs to the public domain. He teaches philosophy at Trent university and is at work co-writing a book with Joseph Heath on the counterculture and mass society.