Paper An Elegy

Paper An Elegy by Ian Sansom, published by HarperCollins on August 18, 2015, is a thought-provoking exploration of the significance of paper in our lives. This 256-page reprint delves into the various roles paper plays, from everyday items like business cards and photographs to more profound uses such as books and letters. Sansom examines the paradox of a world increasingly moving away from paper, raising questions about what might be lost as we transition to digital formats.
In this work, readers will find a blend of cultural study and personal reflection, as Sansom contemplates the history and enduring presence of paper. The book addresses topics related to crafts, technology, and the impact of industrial design on our relationship with paper. As the narrative unfolds, it highlights the myriad ways paper has shaped human experience and continues to influence our lives, even in an age where its prevalence is waning.
Official synopsis Publisher
Let us suppose for a moment that paper were to disappear.
Would anything be lost?
Everything would be lost.
Paper surrounds us. Not only as books, letters and diaries, but as beer mats and birth certificates, board games and business cards, fireworks and flypaper, photographs and playing cards, tickets and tea bags. We are paper people.
But the age of paper is coming to an end. E-books regularly outsell physical books. E-tickets replace the paper variety. Archives are digitized. The world we know was made from paper, and yet everywhere we look, paper is beginning to disappear. As we enter a world beyond paper, Ian Sansom explores the paradoxes of the greatest of man-made materials and shows how some kinds of paper, and the ghosts and shadows of paper, will always be with us.
Paper: An Elegy is a history of paper in all its forms and functions. Both a cultural study and a series of personal reflections on the meaning of paper, this book is a timely meditation on the very paper it is printed on.
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