Originally written as an invited presentation for Feira Nordestina do Livro in Recife, but not presented there when funding fell through, this essay considers three entangled senses of the book in its time—historical, presentational, and experiential— considering the book as a vehicle in which “time is articulated and re-synchronized through various material practices.†As a result of having written about the book, especially in relation to new technologies and digital media, for over a quarter of a century, this essay is to some extent haunted by past formulations of these questions. In speculating about the future of the book, the essay begins from the premise that the future of some things is to be more like themselves, that is, self-similar, but then proceeds to a parable that reflects the life of most books since the dawn of the age of print in which some circulate and disappear from use, others are treasured for reasons of art, of literary, historical, or practical value, still others are kept as a hedge against time or otherwise move through generations of this world, fading and renewed, forgotten and remembered by turns.
