If novelist Robert Coover had his way, all book shops would close their books and doors forever. Coover’s vision of books is one in which they will be written, distributed and read by a computer or some other electronic reading device; a future without printed books. Coover, who is also the founder of the Electronic Literature Association, is not alone in his vision of the future. He is joined by other writers and cyberpunks who claim we are on the verge of a publishing and reading revolution greater than that brought about by the Gutenberg press. Whether in the New York Times Book Review or at writers’ conventions, Coover’s message is the same: “The book is dead.” But to paraphrase an even greater novelist than Coover, “The news of the book’s death has been greatly exaggerated.”

Read the entire article.