Page Loading in Process: Digital Representations of Page Turning and the Future History of the Book

When paper books are finally finished, future book historians will struggle to comprehend the many ways we’ve invented to replicate the feel of turning pages in digital space. The crisp flip of paper has transformed into the wave of a thumb across a synthetic page, the pressed button, or the clicking scroll of a mouse wheel. Since the advent of e-reading, developers have labored to animate the look, feel, and aura of rippling paper, but the book’s image and materiality continue to frustrate epubs, PDFs, and other digital formats. This article engages book historians and media theorists to explore the technological history of replicating the aesthetics of books and the experience of reading them in digital space. Considering the shifting affordances of digital reading, it argues that the commitment to bookish aesthetics has so far hindered digital text delivery and reproduction and suggests that the future of digital reading depends on abandoning the book.