‘More than just objects’: Australian booksellers raise alarm over ‘horrific’ destruction of rare titles to feed AI

From the publisher

“Sometimes books tell you more than the content,” says Tim White, as he lines up carefully dust-jacketed books and pamphlets in plastic sleeves on temporary shelves in Melbourne University’s Wilson Hall. He’s preparing his stall for this weekend’s Melbourne Rare Book Fair. For people like White, who runs independent bookshop Books for Cooks, the book as a physical object is just as important as what’s inside it. “We’re interested in where food and society connect … So we just keep pushing the boundaries, looking for things that show unusual aspects of that, things that tell us a bit more about what it is to be human,” he says. “That’s what…

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