Editorial: Books today

I wish to take a moment to reflect on some of the books I see today. In particular, let me begin by asking: What is the purpose to a book? Is it to be read? Is it for reference? Is it for enjoyment?

I was reading The Road to Reality : A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose last night before going to sleep. Yes, I know, that's not usual bedtime reading but that's what I like, usually. This book tries to be all things to all readers. It has equations and claims to be a sole-source for the known physics of today. A kind of repository to nature's laws. That's fine, but Penrose goes about this by trying to write to the educated reader, one who has a substantial mathematics background.

He then tries to write to the layperson and to do that he explains the mundane. That is, if you know what a complex number is, for example, you certainly don't need him to explain it. If you don't know what a complex number is, well, I don't see how you can read the rest of the book, no matter how much you see that definition. Some minimal background is required to read a book that like this. Trying to please both types of audiences, and everyone in between I should add, simple makes the book unreadable.

What's more, the book is extremely thick: 1136 pages. That's over one-thousand pages bound in a single text! It weighs a few pounds---Amazon says the shipping weight is 3.4 pounds. What does this mean? It means that a person is hardpressed to hold the book and read the pages. The physical structure and weight of a single volume this big makes it impossible.

So, perhaps this book is a reference? Well, no, it's not that because it's clear not organized nor is it indexed to be a useful reference.

In short, the book fails to be much of anything other than a lot of some things but not enough of one thing to be good.

This sounds, and it is, a severe critique of what I am sure Penrose considers an impressive work. The problem is that it's not limited to his work. His book is but an example of a trend.

Nowadays I am seeing more and more books with similar problems. The books don't know who their audience is so they try to be all things to all people. That's a failure. More, books are getting to be extremely long, well in excess of 500-pages at a time. That makes them difficult to read, physically, as I noted above, and difficult to want to finish. You have to have substantial mental stamina simply to stay with the book.

And here's one more point, although Penrose's book does not do this: Books are getting very expensive. I found this book entitled: From Eudoxus to Einstein : A History of Mathematical Astronomy by C. M. Linton that was reviewed on the Mathematical Association of American website. (Here's the review.) The book looks great and I would love to buy it. It costs $79.00 at Amazon, even more if you pay full-price. That's pretty steep. When I look in the book (Thank You, Amazon, for that!) I see that book is good probably great but it's not worth the price.

So, what should be done? First, every author should decide to write books for a particular audience and once decided, leave it at that. If it's a popular book, then fine. If not, then make it a technical book worthy of an educated reader. Next, books are for reading so make them short, to the point, and easy to take with you. A book should be carried around, read at one's convenience. Somehow, I think authors can't help themselves and say much more than they should. Heavens, if an author has a lot to say, make the book a multiple volume set.

Lastly, book prices should be set so that one can buy many different books and not spend so much money on a single copy to the detriment of buying other books. Would that be so hard?

Note to readers: Ordinarily I don't rant like this, but the trend with books is clear and it's not good. I hope authors and publishers will correct their course, and soon.