The one requirement the fifteen contributors – book and literary editors, publishers, translators, printers, poets and novelists – were ‘required to adhere to’ was that they ‘sound like themselves’. This is the overwhelming strength of the book, and its one occasional solipsistic weakness. The first few essays set out to thwart our expectation and to warn us to stay on our toes. Ingeborg Hansen records her deliciously crotchety responses to shoppers in her bookshop. But is this a jape? Can we believe in the ‘thirty-something, extra blonde, extra make-up’ customer who shops for Sartre and Descartes while her ‘hubby’ sits in a V8 ute outside?

Jean Beck’s aggravating and inspiring essay, which follows, is the most problematic of the lot. It is dense but unreliable. Other writers fear the death of taste, imagination and critical thinking more than they fear the loss of the book as artefact. The most personal essays (by Ashley Hay, Rosemary Sorensen, Bruce Sims) are among the best. While neither opposing nor resisting technological evolution, retired publisher Andrew Schuller reckons he would miss book fairs. They would miss him too.