"The book is like the spoon: once invented, it cannot be bettered". (Umberto Eco). These days it is almost impossible to get away from discussions of whether the 'book' will survive the digital revolution. Blogs, tweets and newspaper articles on the subject appear daily, many of them repetitive, most of them admitting they don't know what will happen. Amidst the twittering, the thoughts of Jean-Claude Carriere and Umberto Eco come as a breath of fresh air. There are few people better placed to discuss the past, present and future of the book. Both avid book collectors with a deep understanding of history, they have explored through their work the many and varied ways ideas have been represented through the ages. This thought-provoking book takes the form of a long conversation in which Carriere and Eco discuss everything from what can be defined as the first book to what is happening to knowledge now that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse. En route there are delightful digressions into personal anecdote. We find out about Eco's first computer and the book Carriere is most sad to have sold. Readers will close this entertaining book feeling they have had the privilege of eavesdropping on an intimate discussion between two great minds. And while, as Carriere says, the one certain thing about the future is that it is unpredictable, it is clear from this conversation that, in some form or other, the book will survive.

安貝托·艾柯，讓-剋洛德·卡裏埃爾，一個被譽為二十世紀後半期最耀眼的意大利學者和作傢，享譽世界的哲學傢、符號學傢、曆史學傢和小說傢，一個是法國電影泰鬥、法國國傢電影學院創始人；一個是少有的將精深學術與玄奧小說變成暢銷書、作品被翻譯成三十五種文字之多的作傢，一個是《布拉格之戀》、《鐵皮鼓》等八十多部經典電影劇本的創作者，西班牙電影大師布努埃爾最青睞的編劇。　　兩位對話者除瞭同樣嗜書如命之外，同是古書珍本愛好者，對書籍代錶的人類文明進程有著深刻的理解，對書籍在當下的變局和處境也有洞燭幽徽的觀察。　　紙本書來日來臨？網絡時代，書幸耶？不幸耶？書是否忠實反映人類天纔的創造？記憶如何運行，圖書館怎樣分類？書憑什麼可以經世流傳？書太多瞭怎麼辦？如何談論沒讀過的書……談古溯今，縱橫捭闔，艾柯、卡裏埃爾坐擁書城，帶你穿越從紙莎手稿到電子書籍的曆史，漫談他們的藏書故事，他們的閱讀難題。