The first step in solving a problem is to admit you have one.
I am an electronics geek. I LOVE gadgets! I can't help myself. I want the newest and latest and greatest of everything.
Computers, video games, you name it.
I cycled through several versions of Palm Pilots before switching to BlackBerrys. I'm currently trying to restrain myself from buying the BlackBerry Bold. I have an iPod Nano (the small 1 and half square inch one - before they made it bigger) and I just got an iPod Touch. The Touch was a compromise. I didn't want to give up a lot of the features of the BlackBerry phone for an iPhone but I wanted the iPhone for all the cool things it did. So I bought the iPod Touch to split the difference. OF course, a new one came out the next week. Such is life.
Now, a side note. I may be extremely conservative in my thinking but I'm also very "green". Old cell phones always get donated to charities that can reuse them and the BlackBerry company offers a trade-in program so I can send in the old ones to be refurbished and resold. I do not have a graveyard of old discarded gadgets lying around.
As much as I love my computer and my mini and all the other "toys", there is one thing that I don't think can ever be replaced in my world by an electronic substitute.
Books.
I love books more than just about anything. I get chills in a library. The quiet and the stillness. And all those books. Shelf after shelf, room after room.
Billy and I went into the world's largest bookstore in New York earlier this month. It was Heaven! I could have stayed in there for hours.
Books have always been my friends. I remember many, many Saturday mornings in Laman Library. I would pick out stacks of books and start reading as soon as I got home. Sometimes I would finish the books that afternoon but they were supposed to last until the next Saturday.
Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Bobsie Twins. Judy Blume, Stephen King (when I was older!).
There was just no end to where my imagination could take me.
I've tried books on tape. I've tried electronic books. I've seen the Kindle and I must admit that I'm intrigued. 1,500 titles in one place. Sure would be easier to carry. Definitely would take up less space than the hundreds I own now.
But I just can't bring myself to do it.
I love the way a hardback feels in my hands. Solid. I love turning the pages of good bond paper. I even pick out bookmarks that I think will "go with" that book. Sometimes the book itself is the story. I have first editions. I have old books that belonged to my greatgrandmothers, grandparents, my mom's friends and my dad. I have stood in line for hours to get books signed - Oliver North, Lewis Grizzard, Greg Iles, many others.
It all makes reading a book so much more of an experience. Its more that just a story to me.
I recently attended my 25th high school reunion and that included a campus tour. The library is now mostly computers. Very few books.
That was actually the saddest thing to me. There are over 2,200 computers on my old high school campus. Students just look things up online; Google it; internet searches.
I bet most kids haven't even heard of the Dewey Decimal System and the card catalogue.
If you don't love to read, you won't get this post. If you do, then you understand. A good story can keep me up all night. I wait very impatiently for authors to finish books. If I could stay home all day and read, I would.
Maybe someday.
Maybe someday.
Well said, my friend. I totally, 100% agree with you. There is nothing like the look, feel and smell of a book in hand. I would never trade it!
ReplyDeleteI totally get it!
ReplyDeleteHi Deanne,
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful that you told me about your blog, you make me feel so much better with the things you post! Often I just think I'm the only one out there that is bothered by some of these things! Homeschooling my kids means I have been in charge of teaching them their reading skills and in most recent years researching skills. It is so frustrating to me that no longer can they hold an encyclopedia in their hands and see the headings and flip through the pages, instead they look it up online and see only their topic of search and those that would be on that same page, no chance to physically hold the books and flip through........I thought I was the only one that missed it! Periodicals are the same, I know storage is an issue, but remember physically looking at those old magazines when you needed an article, instead now you just go online. My boys don't even have to be physically in the library to research, they can use their id number on their library card to access almost everything from almost anywhere. I will never forget the day I took my youngest to Laman after we had moved back to Arkansas, thinking to myself, this is not one of those upscale Houston libraries, they will still have everything here. I began to look for encyclopedias, and had to ask about them to locate them, they do have an old set available for people to check out volumes, since no one uses them any more! I had to show my kids one just for fun!!! Laman Library is quite the changed place now with recent renovations.......a third floor complete with coffe shop and more added computers. It is quite upscale from our old years of hours spent there. I have also investigated the Kindle for myself, the ease of taking it with me and all, but I am the same, there is something about the book it self! I am much happier with my "real" book and my lightwedge book light handy for reading at sports practices as the days get shorter. I'm so glad someone else out there enjoys the real books as well!!!!
Thanks so much for your posts!
Lou