Top author foresees the end of books

Pulitzer prize-winning author Richard Ford believes printed books are a luxury we soon won't be able to afford.

Ford's latest book, Canada, has stormed to the top of best-seller lists around the world and says he personally will never read a book on a computer tablet.

But the prospect of losing printed books is of no concern to the author, currently Australia on a spoken word tour.

"To me the fact that the printed book is becoming a kind of economic luxury we can soon not afford, just reduces it and all of its duties to being a delivery system," he told AAP.

"If books can be delivered less expensively on other modes of communication then I'm OK with it."

However reading a book on a computer tablet holds no appeal to him.

"No. I'm not ever going to do it," he said.

"But other people are doing it, I can tell you that - it's a juggernaut you might as well get out of the way of."

Ford sees the development of eBooks as simply progress.

"I don't know that it was ever necessary, but a lot of things that weren't necessary when they started become essentials before very long, it's a market-driven economy."

He is comfortable with the explosion in technology, but believes there is nothing he can do about it.

"Especially someone like me, in a remote corner of America writing books with a pen on a blank sheet of paper, it's all I can do to successfully use my telephone so I don't feel empowered," he chuckles.

* Richard Ford will appear at Dymocks, Garden City, in Perth on Tuesday night, at a University of Western Australia lunch on Wednesday and at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on Thursday.

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