Bryan Appleyard, he of Sunday Times eminence, has an article about the end of the book and of the bookshop. In ten years time, bookshops will be like Smart Snap booths in which we will download either an e-book or collect a copy of whatever which has been made specially for us alone by P.O.D. or Print on Demand.

I know, I know , yawnsville. What bewilders me is why so many commentators, librarians and others who you might think love the book because they make their living from it, are cheering on its demise They WANT the death of the book, they WANT it to wither and die. They LONG for the paperback and words in print on paper to be over. They cannot wait. Did you ever hear of people who play the violin longing for all instruments to die, for opera lovers to cheer on the death of the singer ? But the poor old book MUST it simply MUST die. Go on go on go on, you hear them, Die dammit.

It refuses to of course. There are enough of us who believe in it and love it to keep it going ad infinitum. But Bryan Appleyard is not talking about the e-book or the download, he is talking about this wonderful thing P.O.D.

I have replied to him on his blog but I will say it all again here. P.O.D. is a useful way of keeping some books available - books which sell a few dozen copies a year, maybe less - very academic books, certain textbooks, that sort of thing.  Now I have had occasion to buy several P.O.D. books this past couple of years, for my MA course. I could borrow them from academic libraries but there is sometimes a queue and besides, I like to deface my books with scribble and underlining, so I buy them. Several of the University presses make obscure books about 12th century monasticism available as P.O.D. The most recent one I bought cost £25 when it was last in print, 5 years ago. Make that £30 now if you like. The copy I bought as a Print on Demand cost me EIGHTY THREE POUNDS. And what is more, it was very badly printed and even more badly bound. It fell to bits the first time I opened it up. I sent it back and demanded a replacement, free. 8 weeks later they had printed my next copy on demand. That fell apart too.

I learned from an insider that this is usual. They are not printed and bound as well as the normal run of 1,000 plus copies and they usually do fall apart. But they cost four to six times more than the usual in-print version.

So, this is the end of the bookshop stuffed full of lovely 7.99 paperbacks and 12.99 hardbacks ?

I don`t think so.