[Feature: New Theory of Reading] <Scenes of Reading> Creating Places for Real Encounters with Books in the Search Era / Yoshitaka Haba

2020/05/11

Amazon Japan was established in 2000, when I was a bookstore clerk at Aoyama Book Center. The internet was still in the dial-up era, but sales gradually began to decline. However, what I feared most was the decrease in the number of customers visiting the store.

I believe that a book "only becomes a book when someone other than the author opens it." It doesn't start until someone turns the pages. By being exposed to the eyes of others, heat gradually accumulates there, becoming a swirling energy. However, as the number of visitors decreased, bookstores gradually became "cold."

I thought that if people weren't coming to bookstores, I had no choice but to take books to where the people were, which led to my current job as a book director. After leaving Aoyama Book Center, I worked at the editing production company of Jiro Ishikawa, the former editor-in-chief of BRUTUS, in 2003, where I handled the book selection for "TSUTAYA TOKYO ROPPONGI" (now Roppongi Tsutaya Books), and then started my own company in 2005. Recently, I have more work for public libraries and corporate libraries than for bookstores. I have also worked on the bookshelves for a medical facility for the visually impaired called Kobe City Eye Center Hospital. I am allowed to let books "seep out" into various places.

There are two main things I consider in my work. First, since the world has now completely become search-oriented, everyone only picks up books they already know. In response to that, I want to scatter opportunities to pick up unknown books throughout the world. The other is how to get people to turn their attention to books that take time to read, amidst the fierce competition for time, including smartphones.

To achieve this, I want to be particular about the "way books are presented" to the world. For example, if books selected for a public library are simply arranged according to the NDC (Nippon Decimal Classification), it will be difficult to attract modern people. First, I want to entice people toward books by being creative with the classification and the way signs are displayed.

Due to the new coronavirus, the opening on March 1st was postponed, but a cultural facility for children called "Nakanoshima Children's Book Forest" was built in Nakanoshima, Osaka, through donations collected by Tadao Ando and donated to Osaka City. Our company became a joint designated manager, and as the creative director, I am selecting books and creating shelves using an original classification system rather than the NDC.

For example, right near the entrance, there is a sign that says "Let's Play with Nature," where there are books about the river flowing in front of us and books about the trees planted in Nakanoshima Park. Rather than writing a classification code like "481," displaying a sign like "For People Who Like Animals" will undoubtedly reach a child's heart better. I am also making efforts to get people to pick up books by extracting passages of words from the books and displaying them as three-dimensional aphorisms.

In the "Book Forest," there is a 17-meter-high empty cylindrical space. Using video works, we project words from books or parts of picture books there, and then guide them by saying which floor and where that book is located. It is a facility that uses every possible method to encourage curiosity about books, get children to pick them up, and have them open the pages.

If a passage of words catches their heart, they will read the book. That introduction is important. It's not just about placing books; it's about the intention behind gathering and arranging them. If that intention isn't conveyed, people won't understand why the books are there or how we want them to be picked up. As long as I am doing this as a professional, I want to create a state where people find themselves reading without realizing it, rather than a calculated "Read this, read that" approach.

Currently, I feel there is a lot of information and goods that are consumed and flow away for the sake of flow-type temporary communication. Everyone is also converting clothes and such into cash or exchanging them on Mercari and the like. However, if you ask whether humans can be satisfied with just that, the answer is probably no. Things that form a part of yourself, things that are deeply stuck inside you and cannot be removed, cannot be easily handed over to the flow.

I believe that paper books are capable of piercing a person's heart in that way. This is because once they are printed, they cannot be rewritten. Digital content can be rewritten at any time and has no end. Because paper books cannot be rewritten, they harbor some kind of obsession from the writers, editors, and people involved in the book who want to deliver something. That is why I think they easily pierce people's hearts.

Nowadays, basically everything in the world is share-based. SNS is like that, and in games, everyone goes to defeat monsters together. However, a book can only be read by one person. I believe that this necessity of falling into solitude is what enriches people.

The reader somehow receives the soul of the words wrung out by the writer, and a one-on-one transfer of spirit takes place. That act seems very precious. Deepening one's thoughts while confronting the writer is, I believe, extremely important in the AI era, an era where the meaning and value of humans are wavering. In that sense, I believe that paper books are the media of the future. [Interview]