This is Not the End of the Book

A conversation curated by Jean-Philippe de Tonnac

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EBook

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Apple Books

The perfect gift for book lovers: two of the world's great men have a delightfully rambling conversation about the future of the book in the digital era, and decide it is here to stay.

'The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered' - Umberto Eco.

These days it is impossible to get away from discussions of whether the book will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting ignorance of the future. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carrière and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air.

This thought-provoking book takes the form of a conversation in which Carrière and Eco discuss everything from how to define the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse.

En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carrière is most sad to have sold. And while, as Carrière says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive.

Published: 1 July 2011
ISBN: 9781446468203
Imprint: Vintage Digital
Format: EBook
Pages: 352

Categories:

Non-fiction prose

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About the authors

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) wrote fiction, literary criticism and philosophy. His first novel, The Name of the Rose, was a major international bestseller. His other works include Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before, Baudolino, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, The Prague Cemetery and Numero Zero along with many brilliant collections of essays.

Jean-Claude Carrière

Jean-Claude Carrière is a writer, playwright and screenwriter. He is notably the co-author of Conversations About the End of Time (with Stephen Jay Gould, Umberto Eco, etc.) He has also worked with Peter Brook, Milos Forman, Buñuel, Godard and the Dalaï Lama.

Praise for This is Not the End of the Book

A storming book. The next best thing to sitting in Umberto Eco's living room after dinner; a dream collection of lucid and fascinating discussions.
Nick Harkaway

This book is a reminder that the satisfaction of working through even a relatively short book comes in part through confronting digressions, dead ends and distractions: the hallmark of conversation between friends, not of Internet speed-reading.
Wall Street Journal

As the conversation blossoms, the pair wander blissfully off topic into wider philosophical speculation about the nature of culture, for instance or humanity's curious relationship with past, present and future. And along the way there are plenty of pleasant diversions and anecdotes, taking in such diverse subject matter as Italian cinema forgotten French baroque poets, and the place of philosophy in contemporary European education systems. All this, naturally, informed by their love of books
TLS