What About Books?

A motion picture, or music, or television, they have to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadbast to a vast audience. Other forms of mass media cost too much to produce to risk reaching only a limited audience. Only one person. But a book . . . . A book is cheap to print and bind. A book is as private and consensual as sex. A book takes time and effort to consume--something that gives a reader every chance to walk away. Actually, so few people make the effort to read that it's difficult to call books a "mass medium." No one really gives a damn about books. No one has bothered to ban a book in decades [...] But, if you want the freedom to go anywhere, talk about anything, then write books . . . . There are places only books can go. That is the advantage books still have. This is why I write.

Chuck Palahniuk, "The 'Guts' Effect"