The book is dead. Technology has killed it. The libraries of the world are dooming to become museums. (1)____ Americans, however, attend to bring an either-or mentality to most things. (2)____ The invention of television led to predictions about the demise of radio. The making of movies was to be the funeral bell of alive theater; recorded music, the end of concerts.(3)____ All these forms still exist-sometimes overshadowed by their siblings, but not smothered by them. And with the direst predictions, reading continues to be part of the life of the mind.(4)____
There's no question that reading off-paper, as I think of it, will increase in years to come. (5)____ A library that got 10 as gifts reported that within a half hour they had all checked out. (6)____ And there's no question that once again we will be treated to lamentations suggesting that true literacy has become the lost art. The difference this tune is that we will confront with elitism from both sides. (7)____ Not only have literary purists now complain of the evanescent nature of letters onscreen, the tech fanatics have become equally disdainful of the old form.(8)____
Perhaps we should look past both sides to concern ourselves with function instead of form. I am cheered by the Gallup poll in which asks a simple question do you happen to be reading any books or novels at present?(9)____ In 1952 a merely 18 percent of respondents said yes.(10)____ The last tune the survey was done, in 2005, that number was 47 percent. So much for the good old days.