Books can enrich lives and even save them. Although it’s not a remarkable assertion, it’s integral to Will Schwalbe’s argument for the continued relevance of books. Make that the urgency of books: If the internet has rendered books of compiled data (phone directories, dictionaries) dispensable, the onslaught of digital inundation has made the pleasure of reading from the printed page a necessity for maintaining sanity and perspective. Schwalbe has been active in web publishing, yet issues a ringing manifesto for print in the digital age. “Constant connectivity can be a curse, encouraging the lesser angels of our nature,” he writes. Among the Muses, he adds, none was named Impatience or Distraction.