The Revenge of Analog ─ Real Things and Why They Matter

A funny thing has happened on our way to the digital utopia: we find ourselves increasingly missing reality.

In this spirited book, David Sax has found story after story of entrepreneurs, artisans, and creators who make real money by selling real things. And they're not just local craftspeople, either. As paper is supposedly vanishing, Moleskine notebooks?a company founded in 1997, the same year as the first dot-com boom?has grown into a large multinational corporation. As music supposedly migrates to the cloud, vinyl record sales were up over 50 percent in 2015, and generated almost $350m in sales. And as retail was supposedly hitting bottom, star Silicon Valley companies like Apple and Amazon are investing in brick-and-mortar stores.

Sax's work reveals not just an underreported trend in business but a more fundamental truth about how humans shop, interact, and even think. He captures what you're missing when you can't find a good song in a vast iTunes library, or can't recall the details of an ebook you read: any simulation of a sight or smell or activity you experience in the real world is just that?a simulation. As you read this enlightening book (preferably on paper!) that seemingly simple observation gathers ever more weight.

The success stories in this book are eye-opening, even inspiring. You'll come away from this book with a renewed sense of what it means to work, live, and shop. It is the perfect gift for a book lover?something you can unwrap and hold. And for anyone who has grown weary of overnight billionaires and social media market-disruptors, it is proof positive that there's another side of the story.