House of Cat

All things artful and curious

A Few Thoughts on Books

Posted on | June 9, 2010 | 2 Comments

I know. I get it. Kindles and ipads, and the like, are cool. What’s not to like about gadgets that let you do everything, and go everywhere and blah blah blah. At some point I imagine I’ll have some kind of ebook thingy. Maybe.

One thing I’m certain of is that my love for books is deep and true, and I will never lose the satisfaction of spending an afternoon buried in a book. For me, electronic stuff represents efficiency and networking and noodling around the world of creativity and news and stuff, while a book is a sweet return to the natural world, the slower world, the quiet world.

I like that I can toss a book in my bag and not worry about it getting banged around. In fact, I like how books look once they’ve been banged around a bit. I like getting books from the library or used book stores, that have people’s folds and marks on them; proof that we are all here, for a short while, sharing this time and space.

I like that books are passed around among friends and family. I like buying books and sending them out into the world with the request to just keep it moving, knowing that the worldwide book-sharing chain is a powerful and wonderful thing.

I like looking at old books and noting how styles and book-making materials have changed. I envy the designers of book covers and I daydream about writing my own book(s).

I come from a family of bookworms. I can’t help my love for words. My school-teacher mom’s version of a great day was taking us to the library, giving us a 10 book checkout limit, then bringing us home for some quiet time. And my dad has more books than I have music; floor to ceiling style. It’s part of my natural landscape. Evenings spent lying on my bed plowing through book after book while the sounds and smells of summer drifted through my window are among my most treasured memories.

The e-nerd part of me can appreciate the idea of downloadable books, and all that they offer, but the old-school, natural woman part of me guffaws at the notion of having my entire life digitized. Face-time, earth-time and book-time are essential elements of who I am and I don’t see an electronic gadget changing that.

Note: Please support your local library. They are closing at an alarming rate and as nice as the internet is, there is something about a library that does not translate to the screen. So go pay your overdue fine and check out some books. And take a kid with you. They’ll love it.

Related Posts
World’s Smallest Library
Library on a Donkey
Owed to a Spelling Chequer
Letterpressing
Bronte Sisters Power Dolls

wordage_img

Category: Culture, Wordage
Tags: > > > > >

Comments

2 Responses to “A Few Thoughts on Books”

  1. Amy
    June 9th, 2010 @ 9:04 AM

    I feel the same way. I hear people talk about the Kindle or the Nook and I just shake my head. I love the feel and smell of books. My whole house is full of books and records and I couldn’t live any other way.

  2. Gabe
    June 10th, 2010 @ 1:25 AM

    Agreed, agreed, agreed. My local library has on ongoing book (and sometimes record!)sale that allows me to synergize my donations to that worthy cause with my obsessive collecting of all things used and cool. Most books are a quarter, so I’ve been buying stuff just because I like the vintage covers and so forth. Of course, that quickly got out of hand, and now I have a veritable library of my own. But at least it’s for charity…

Leave a Reply






Overheard at the Record Store
Wordage: The Shameless Pursuit of More



House of Cat RSS Feed

Links