Monday, February 3, 2014

A Case for Real, Heavy, Paper Books.

One of the first questions people ask when they find out I am a bookworm is, "So, do you like Kindles?"

Kindles and ebooks are fine...I mean I have one and I like that I can download old books for free and listen to my audiobooks on it...but...it's not the same. It's convenient, but since when are the best things in life convenient?  I think life would become a dry, hollow thing for me if I did everything the sake of convenience.

Reading from a screen is not the same as reading a printed page. One of the reasons I love reading is because I love the experience of reading. I love the feel of the pages as I flick through them while nestled into couch corners with hot things to drink or sprawled out on hammocks swinging my leg lazily over the side to catch a breeze. I love the smell of new and aging ink combined with paper and I love running my fingers along the weathered spines of books as I peruse used bookstores. Books have been my companions and friends as I've grown up, one's always been near me, tucked under my arm or nestled in a purse I'd chosen specifically for it's book bearing size.

You can't love e-books to pieces and while this may be a good thing in some people's eyes...I don't like it.

I've bought books that had been loved to pieces, loved my own books to pieces, and they remind me of life. Want to live forever? Sit on a shelf, never open yourself up, never allow your spine to be bent or your pages to be touched, never let yourself be shoved in a corner or lost on a park bench, and you may look unscathed on the outside--but you'll be dead on the inside.

I think books and people must be read and shared and broken and loved in order to have truly lived.

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