A curious juxtaposition occurred by chance on the bus
home last night. I was reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs in all
its casebound, 650-plus page glory. The bloke sitting next to me was reading
The Guardian on his iPad.
I like to think Jobsy would have been amused by that.
There's a certain irony in the fact that an actual, physical book about this hero
of the digital age has gone straight to the top of the bestseller charts. According
to The Bookseller it's one of the fastest-selling non-fiction works of all
time, with 37,645 copies sold in its first week (the week ending 29 October) on
sale. Over in the States the equivalent figure was a massive 379,000.
Publication was brought forward from the intended date
of 24 November after Jobs exited this mortal coil on 5 October.
This must have made life interesting for printer Clays,
which has done a sterling job on this weighty tome. Love the cool, monochrome, touchy-feely
matt laminate jacket, too. I've only just started the book but the passage
where Isaacson reveals that the only thing Jobs interfered with was the cover
design did make me smile. I can imagine his quest for perfection in all things
kicking in big time.
Elsewhere the physical book news is patchier, figures
from Nielsen Bookscan show total sales in October were down by £12m or 8% compared
with last year, at £144.7m, partly due to the migration of paperback fiction to
ebook format.
Turn to page 503 of Steve Jobs for his views on
publishing and indeed journalism.
