My thoughts on books and what NEEDS to change.

Having just finished my first non-audio book in a year, ( I know, great work right?) I have a few humble suggestions on the future of books, and what needs to change. Some of these will be non-negotiable, and some may be decided by committee, the members of which will be appointed by me. These changes are necessary for the future enjoyment of books and will surely met with widespread applause and possibly awards. 

Here are the changes as follows:

A Character Description Page

 Unfortunately, books have a habit of describing characters only once, "Gavin was a short man with knee length auburn hair, a weathered face and grey eyes that told a story". Then they (books) expect us to remember this every time Gavin appears, but that's unsustainable. Some of us leave gaps in between reading bouts, and we can't remember what Gavin looks like, so he just becomes a unformed figure in our minds, cartoonish, or shapeless, or worse, he becomes 'Mark' or 'Theo'. Look, I'm not advocating for an illustration of Gavin, but rather a page at the end of the book that would describe him in great detail, a reminder. I also think all characters should be 'weathered', as it's more interesting, but I accept that this may not be optimal (stories about babies etc.)

More pages needed in books

Have you ever noticed that you're getting to the end of a book? Well I have, because I've read several and it's really very obvious: the end of the book gets thinner and thinner.  This is a problem. One can guess with a greater ease how a book will end, simply because there's only a handful of pages left. Wouldn't it be better (it would), if there were 'dummy' pages at the end, say.. 30 or 40 (it should vary), that just had 'bla bla bla' written in them, so you wouldn't know when the end was coming and then BAM it would be over. Non negotiable. 

Dust covers to be abolished

My book already has a cover, why does my cover need a cover? That's like wearing two jackets. It's also downright dangerous. I frequently pick up a book, only for the shiny dustcover to grip my fingers and the book betwixt to cascade onto the floor or maybe a foot. MY foot. In addition, books with dust covers are so NEEDY, they're like "hey look at my glossy colorful jacket, so ALLURING", but then they're like "hey maybe you want that 18th century understated vibe with the name of the book in gold lettering on the spine, I can be ANYTHING you want me to be." Pathetic. Non-negotiable.

Body terminology to be extended to other parts of the book.

I like the word spine to describe the small side part of a book, perhaps this could be extended to the cover (skin), the pages (guts) and the last chapter (death) of a book.  The middle of a book could be the 'belly' and the opening the 'mouth'. Negotiable.

Forewards/Prefaces to be abolished

Look, we get it, the book took ages to write, stop making it longer. To people who only read books infrequently this is annoying. Just get us too the good stuff. Books with prefaces are insecure on the quality of their writing. They're like "okay, maybe don't judge a book on it's merit, read this first and then you'll appreciate it more". No deal. If you want to do that, do it at the end ( possibly in place of a few bla bla pages) Forewards are even worse "hey my mate wrote this book and it took her ages, she's really great, you should read it" WE ALREADY ARE READING IT BOZO AND YOU'RE WASTING TIME. Negotiable, but only if the author passed away before finishing the book, or it's about a really traumatic historical event, something like that. A case by case basis, basically.

All bookmarks to have tassels.

Non-negotiable.

Books that became movies are not allowed change their cover

Let ME imagine what the 5 foot 6, feminine featured red-head weathered woman looked like, don't foist the Hollywood actor on me- stop FORCING my imagination to that of the casting director. Negotiable in certain circumstances, eg Ian McKellen as Gandalf. 

All books to be second hand

Not sure how this would work, but I like the theory

If you have helpful suggestions, you may be considered for my committee, in the unlikely event of me rising to supreme leader. 

-Arms

Head of committee on the future of book reading worldwide (FBRW)