Book-in-a-box to Xbox: materiality and the contemporary textual object

Book-in-a-box to Xbox is a discussion of developments in the material form of contemporary textual objects and of the impact this has on user/reader experience. The article formulates itself as a contemporary book history, situating the texts in question within the broader sphere of digital culture, and analyses textual function, reception, form and user interaction, presenting a cultural theorising of contemporary textual objects. The article conducts these discussions via a consideration of Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 (a key example of materially experimental literature); recent developments in e-reading and the implications of these developments; designing interactivity in massively multiplayer online gaming; and emerging forms of sociality, or shared experience, in virtual reading and playing communities.