When it comes to music and literature, the digital age has reduced the need for physical objects of art, but not their appeal. The surge in demand for new vinyl records demonstrates the persistence of the physical.
So does the thriving business of self-publishing. At a time when anyone can blog to his or her heart's content, or can write, lay out, and make available a book in PDF form, writers (from the talented to the deluded) continue to seek the prestige of creating printed books with their name on the cover.
Then there is the persistence of high-quality small presses like the Pushkin Press, a London firm that publishes a select number of artistically designed literary titles. Pushkin has just come out with a new, sweet little edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and in addition to being nicely designed, it's a good reminder of the relationship - still intimate after millennia - between literature and physical objects.
This book would be a good gift for any lover of poetry or Shakespeare. Even for someone who already has the Sonnets, either by themselves or in a Complete Shakespeare, putting this volume on one's shelf might be more like hanging a new painting by a favorite artist than like repeating something.
The hand-sized format makes the poems much easier to read than they are in any huge hardcover volume. Even if you don't read them, leaving the book carefully tossed somewhere in your living room is bound to impress your guests. Just don't let them eat their cakes and ale near it - it's too good-looking for that risk.
The newcomer to Shakespeare's sonnets should be forewarned that, with some exceptions, they are tricky to understand. Shakespeare's use of the English language is so brilliantly compressed that the meaning of many of the poems can be tough to fathom on first or second reading; in some cases they will elude understanding until you take the time to look up some professorial analysis. Fortunately, that sort of thing is easy to find on the internet.
Article comments
1 - Brandy
You made a very interesting point in your last paragraph!
I agree with you, people do crave the physical representation of art and the written word. Museums exist as testament to that. I hope that description of the crumbling books in "The Time Machine" never comes true...