Focusing on the art, culture, and future of books, the Impressions series from the UICB and the UI Press proudly announces its first title, Metamedia: American Book Fictions and Literary Print Culture after Digitization by Alexander Starre.

Does literature need the book? With electronic texts and reading devices growing increasingly popular, the codex is no longer the default format of fiction. Yet as Alexander Starre shows in Metamedia, American literature has rediscovered the book as an artistic medium after the first e-book hype in the late 1990s. By fusing narrative and design, a number of “bibliographic” writers have created reflexive fictions—metamedia—that invite us to read printed formats in new ways. Their work challenges ingrained theories and beliefs about literary communication and its connections to technology and materiality. Metamedia explores the book as a medium that matters and introduces innovative critical concepts to better grasp its narrative significance.

Designed by the UICB's Sara Sauers, the book itself helps demonstrate its arguments in canny harmony with Starre's reflections. For further information, including purchase options, go here.