“Music divorced from packaging is all about the songs, not the disk it comes on or the sleeve it comes in; novels and other works of literature will be all about their words.

“Critics who can’t believe this, that great novels will still be great novels when separated from their physical packages, are much like The Grinch in Dr. Seuss’s classic story The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. The Grinch looked at Christmas and saw only the surface: wrapping paper and colorful lights, piles of toys, and yards of decoration. And yet — as he discovered after he stole all of the trappings of the holiday from the townspeople of Whoville — Christmas continued to exist, perhaps more at that point than ever. ‘It came without ribbons! It came without tags!’ the Grinch finally discovered. ‘It came without packages, boxes or bags!’

“The same could be said for books that come without packages or covers; their greatness will continue to shine, and they will still be great works of literature.”

—from Jeff Gomez’s Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age (published Nov 2007)