Andy Matuschak put out a very interesting piece recently, "Why books don't work". While the title is slightly clickbait-y, the content is a substantive and thought-provoking argument that non-fiction books are not actually good tools for conveying knowledge. That the central premise of book-based learning - "people absorb knowledge by reading sentences" - is not generally true*. Instead, people depend on "metacognition" (thinking about what they are reading) to actually absorb and internalize what they have read, which is not something that comes easily. And even those books which appear explicitly designed to facilitate learning (e.g. textbooks) depend on context to actually act as useful learning tools, whether that context is a course, a classroom or a discussion group.
The prescribed antidote is fortunately not an accepting shrug, but instead that this is an opportunity to "make new forms... it is possible to design new mediums which embody specific ideas". To improve on the book medium "so that its “grain” bends in line with how people think and learn". Matuschak acknowledges that this is a tall order, but proffers Quantum Computing, an initial attempt with his collaborator Michael Nielsen.
Matt Clifford included the piece in his weekly Matt's Thoughts In Between newsletter (subscribe!), with the salient observation that this is a bet on human design in the face of the evolved book medium (which is often a brave bet to make). But books are a technology that haven't changed in millenia (even e-readers try to mimic paper as much as possible), while our means of information transmission have transformed and proliferated unimaginably. Now seems as good a time as any to reconsider this cornerstone of human knowledge. And while Matuschak's piece says "it doesn’t even necessarily mean abandoning paper", I do think if something replaces the medium, it will likely be dynamic and tech enabled.
With these thoughts fresh in my mind I was interested to come across Going Critical, by Kevin Simler, which weaves interactive simulations into a very interesting piece on diffusion through a network. The piece is interspersed by illustrative examples that deepen understanding of quite complex phenomena in a very intuitive way. I recommend you give it a read.
This particular approach worked very well, and was very memorable. But I think what struck me was how appropriate it was to the specific topic, but that it wouldn't necessarily be generalisable. Which lead me to a general observation: I think that if something does replace books, it won't be another monolithic medium, but a rich mixture of forms. Kevin shared a range of his inspirations. I look forward to seeing others' explorations, and may even break out of the box myself.
*In a perfect and slightly ironic illustration of this phenomenon, I found myself having to revisit the original article quite a bit to remember the details, having read it a few days ago.