library george peabody 2


Toby Mundy
Amazon knows the price of everything.
But does it care about its value?






Strahov Theological Hall - Original Baroque Cabinets, Prague







The third thing a book does is impart current knowledge. When TS Eliot asked plaintively in The Rock, ‘Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?’, he was reminding us that these two things are not the same. Knowledge comes from the interpretation of information, experience and facts. It comes from the stories we tell about those things. Perhaps it is the capacity to create these stories that make us human.

library bibliothèque nationale richelieu





First published on Medium, 1 August.


The photos are of the George Peabody Library, Boston, by Matthew Petroff; Strahov Theological Hall, Prague, photo © Jorge Royan; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Richelieu site, photo by Vincent Desjardins.


  1. William Risby

    Great article, which is almost perfectly mirrored by the almost defunct music industry, and for the same reasons. Why do authors not allow their books to be sold electronically? I understand that they can make a good income from it, but in the long run they are killing the goose that lays the golden egg…

  2. Reblogged this on Night and Day and commented:

  3. If it was not Amazon, some other company would have stepped in. It is the constructive destruction paving the way to benefit the masses at large. Today’s losers may be tomorrow’s winners. The only way to survive is to adopt with the changing world. NYT has done a great job in this process. Authors and publishers has to come up with a way to adopt with the changing world, no one else will do for them. If outsiders will do it, they will be merciless-like Amazon.

    • William Risby

      Fayyaz, while I agree that to be financially successful as an author, one may have to adapt to the changing world, there actually will be no winners, and what Toby Mundy has addressed in this piece is that while we can hold in our hand a physical book that was made thousands of years ago, the chances that we will still have a digital file of “White Noise” in a thousand years is next to zero. What we will actually have is white noise.

      • I can understood the nostalgia of old days and physically holding a memorable book, and old days always have a romantic appeal. But very few will have the privilege to physically hold it and read it. But imagine the same book could be read in digital form in every corner of the world on internet. The masses at large are the winners. Now one can do the research on any topic anywhere within few hours, which used to take months and was limited to only privileged few. I do not think digital age will reduce the publishing of books either, rather it has increased the publications because now many authors has access to publication. The only hurdle for the reader is to sort out the clutter of information..It is a small price to pay for having access to knowledge anywhere in the world.

        • William Risby

          I think we are in agreement. I am just talking about the longevity of a digital file, and whether a book written today will even exist in 50, let alone 500 years. There is no doubt though that the reason we are having this conversation is because of one of the benefits of digital publishing, and also the great benefits of having education and research instantly at our fingertips.

  4. I don’t entirely agree with Grandinetti that “books compete against Candy Crush, Twitter, Facebook, streaming movies, newspapers you can read for free.” I think books compete with other books, and book readers will always be there for all the important reasons that Toby describes. But I do agree that the business models are being disrupted, and we need to take care to protect and reward the artists as well as their champions in the publishing world.

  5. Yes books have a unique place in the life of all book lovers. e books or kindle can never take the place of physical books. Thank you for this article. Lakshmi Bhat

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