Faber's Stephen Page Opens London Book Fair's Quantum: 'Cultural Responsibility'

While the new realities of data in the business mean "The pebbles we throw into the pond have the capacity to create ripples that go much further, much faster," he says, "I think it's also a moment for publishers to identify the truth that we've been living in a fairly commercial environment.

"We're now moving into one that's far more serious in terms of the collision of ideas and the need for stories, the need for writers to be published freely, courageously. Cut us and you'll find it-deep down in the publishing communities of the United Kingdom, the United States, the European countries-there's the real belief that we have a responsibility to our society, to the cultures we're part of."