I think the publisher’s association should send a thank-you message to IKEA. The recent television commercial promoting the paper catalogue of the Swedish furniture maker (now viral on the web) has reminded millions of people of the ease of use of the traditional book, that object without a power cord or a password that arrives with content already downloaded and may be shared at will. Two and a half minutes of irony and the word “book” is once again on the map for millions of people. I am more than delighted that the debate rages as to whether the IKEA ad is really orginial, whether the parody of Apple product launces is effective or whether it is ethical to kill trees to produce catalogues. For those of us with tiny budgets and absolutely no chance of championing the extraordinary design of the good old book in front of such a large audience, this bit of help from Sweden was a nice surprise. I don’t think IKEA is entirely disinterested regarding the fate of traditional books. In 2012 alone it sold 41 million Billy bookshelves worldwide. One imagines the company would like to keep this popular item in production and it hopes that someone out there will continue to produce those items for which it was designed. Let’s keep the conversation going about those book-books.