Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.
Ursula K. Le Guin

Source: https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal

Books, and by extension, writing, are too often seen as commodities today. They're treated as content, nothing more, and as essentially interchangeable with one another. We forget that books have the power to make us feel, to present us with new ideas. Books have the power to change the world.

Even if they're not once in a lifetime, genre changing pieces of high art, a book, especially of poetry or fiction is still art. And there will always be a need for what Dean Wesley Smith calls pulp; your crime novels, your romances, your by the numbers adventures. These, I think, are the types of books most prone to being treated as commodities, but they are still art.

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