Will Self

Summative Assessment: Gareth Golder

Digital Books are a Threat to Writers, Will Self

1. Will Self introduced the article by complimenting the qualities which books have. He praises books for their portability, how functional they are and that they are generally attractive to look at. He then goes on to talk about what he believes makes digital books so useful. He talks about how the technology is flicker-free, easy to read and that they have a large capacity.
Self then described the bad sides of digital books, highlighting the “Google settlement” as potentially damaging to the literary industry. Especially the fact that writers have to opt out of having their books on digital form rather than opting in. Thus resulting in lower revenue for the writers themselves similar to other industries such as music and film.
Free news, according to Will Self, resulted and continues to make newspaper companies go out of business. This then leads to less choice of news outlets and because the larger news companies profit from this, it leads to less innovation.
Will Self was fascinated by the iPhone because it’s a lighter option to books, they are portable, and he was very impressed with how
However, the words chosen can be extemely complex at times which could be seen as arrogant by some readers but also thoroughly enjoyable by others as he uses the words in a humerous manner, example of this are: “antediluvians” and “Why schlep to the bookshop?” These words can create vivid images which can make the passage very enjoyable to read as well as being