PRESUMABLY, when the television was invented, it was seen by early adopters as the end of the road for radio, as the arrival of electric light meant curtains for the candle. Yet only rarely does new technology supersede the old. Ten years ago, I interviewed an interior designer who said that he never fitted bookshelves in his clients’ homes because ‘they wouldn’t be reading books for much longer’. Cheeringly, book sales rose by 20% over the beginning of the pandemic.
