When I wonder what the future of books will be, I often think about horses. Before automobiles existed, everyone had a horse. Then cars became available, and their convenience, compared to horses, was undeniable.

Orlean frames anxieties about the “future of books” through a historical analogy: horses did not vanish when cars arrived, but their role shifted from everyday necessity to specialized, often recreational use. The comparison suggests that new technologies can be undeniably convenient without fully erasing older forms; instead, they reorganize cultural habits and markets. Applied to books, the point is less about extinction than about transformation—print may lose dominance as a default medium while retaining value for particular experiences (aesthetic pleasure, collectability, deep reading, gifting). The quote also implies that debates about media change are recurring and that adaptation, not apocalypse, is the more realistic pattern.