4 January 2016
This year, however, has seen a breathing space, a "year of print" (Bookseller), in which the end of the world was postponed yet again. For a nail-biting decade it was said that e-reading would spell death to the traditional book. Actually, the reverse has been true. A body of evidence now suggests that ebooks have actually stimulated the market for hardbacks. Waterstones, once facing meltdown, has returned to profit; independent bookshops are making money. So the seasonal glass turns out to be (just) half full, with all kinds of print flourishing, and the digital tide receding, as the e-boom stalls and hardbacks rally.