(x-posted to This Is Where The Voices Go)
The combination of a recent family bereavement and Facebook finally releasing the admin shackles on my page No, I do NOT have too many books! has had me thinking about the past. The past and bookcases.
 |
| a bookcase, yesterday |
I have a complex relationship with e-readers, probably because I don't own one. I have a complex relationship with books, probably because I own thousands.
As a child I remember staring at all the books on the shelves in our dining room* and wondering what they were about, wondering where they had come from and where they fitted in with the history of my family and the broader history of the world around us. Some covers and titles were intimidating in their quirkiness, like all the Paddy Clarkes and Sue Townsends, while the Tolkeins stood like defiant stores of treasure and Abbie Hoffman's call to Steal This Book proved almost too tempting. Books weren't just stories, they were little pieces of the world, weathered or preserved with reason and purpose, little histories in and of themselves.
I can't imagine a child staring at a Kindle with that same level of awe.
Don't get me wrong. E-readers, the Kindle foremost of them all, are exploding the worlds of reading and literacy. People who had given up on reading are again picking up the habit. A countless multitude of texts are at the fingertips of every single user/reader, and independent presses are finding themselves ready and able to compete side by side with the big publishing houses. The Kindle has done nothing but help in the spreading of words and stories.
But it's still just a little black stick.
In e-readers, the wonder of a stack of books is replaced with a coolness factor, an intrigue as to what the device is and what it can do, but with no precedence over a mobile phone, TV remote or electric can opener. When a book no longer satisfies a child, all books are not held to blame because all books are not the same item, but part of the rich tapestry of objects and ideas that the child is exploring. Tie all literature together in one device, and when the content becomes jaded and spurned, the device becomes jaded and spurned. Suddenly the entire world of literature can be snuffed out with the flick of a power key.
And at the very basic level... a child will find a kindle makes a much less serviceable hat.
That house I grew up in is still there, still lived in by my parents, with most the books on those shelves standing the same as they did twenty years ago. Boxes and piles of other books now cluster around their feet, sprawling over the piano that stands between them, and working their steady way across the floor to consume the rest of the room.
Nick
xx
*Pretentious as that sounds, it was "dined" in at a rate of less than once per year.
There is little that has as warm a feel as a well-stocked book-case, not too tidy, and definitely, not one of those with pretend books all matching as one sees now and then.
ReplyDeleteMarj.
Indeed! Books always look a little better when they seem to be fighting each other for room!
DeleteNick
xx
I never have to decorate because books make my room colorful, warm and inviting.
ReplyDeleteNever thought of it like that- and you could change the colour scheme just by moving the books around!
DeleteNick
xx
I've made one move over 3 mountain passes, and two trans-continental moves in the past 10 years. I didn't have much furniture (a bed, the rocker that I rocked my daughter in, my grandmother's writing desk...that sort of thing) but I had to use the biggest U-Haul because of my boxes and boxes of books. I might buy an e-reader one of these days to use on airplanes and such, but my books are my friends--the e-reader would be simply a utilitarian object.
ReplyDeleteRobin
Don't forget airplanes often make you switch electronics off. You can't switch off a book!
DeleteNick
xx
But you wouldn't want to carry twenty books with you on a flight or even check them. If I'm taking my daughter (who is almost 2), I bring several books for her and my kindle with (usually) a kindle-friendly edition of The Atlantic, the novel or novels I'm reading, the poetry book we're currently reading from (Walt Whitman, this month), and the chapter book we read through at night (currently, Jane Eyre). Since we read so much, it's really nice to be able to carry it all so compactly.
DeleteWell of course. Working around situations where there are limitations- finance/space/weight is where e-readers come into their element. Desptie being a bibliophile I'm very much not in the luddite camp, and believe a combination is effective.
DeleteAlthough when dflying with a 2 year old I imagine any and all measures to keep them entertained are most effective and necessary!
Nick
xx
There is nothing more satisfing than moving house and after a hard day of packing looking at the piles of boxes of books and devising ways of messing with peoples minds! Books (about 20 of these) More books (another 20) and Box 783 of books. All those boxes are now proudly unpacked and jammed into the overflowing shelves again :)
ReplyDeleteI look forward to the day when my kids (ages 5 and 1) start perusing my many shelves of many books to have their little minds and imaginations exploded...then my wife will know that, no, I don't have too many books.
ReplyDeleteI love my books, however I bought an ereader after my first christmas break at college where I had an entire suitcase dedicated to books so that I could switch them out and come back with different ones. Now, with an ereader I can carry hundreds of books and have a huge selection of what to read with me wherever I go. Now, I'm spending the summer living with seven other people in a tiny room and am really glad that several of us chose to bring ereaders instead of paper books because we simply don't have the space for anything more.
ReplyDeleteThey do serve a purpose, I'll give them that. But given the choice and the space...
DeleteNick
xx
It isn't necessarily an either/or argument. I finally got an e-reader this year because I hate schlepping a dozen books on vacation. Now I take one or two and the tablet (and my iPod with its dozens of audiobooks.) The paper book is for takeoffs and landings. During the flight you can use electronic devices that aren't hooked up to cellular/wireless networks.
DeleteI still have all those books in hard copy at home. I listen to the audiobooks while doing housework, on long drives, or when gardening. It's a very bad habit, but I can't shake it.
Bobbee
Agree; there is never such a thing as "too many books." That phrase is an oxymoron. That would be like saying there were too many people--and we ALL have a story to tell. Yay, books! ;) ~ Blessings!
ReplyDeleteI have a Kindle Fire, and as an avid bibliophile I have to agree. There is something magical about hard copy books. The colors of the cover, the texture of the pages, the smell of the ink, and losing yourself in the experience of a good story.
ReplyDeleteThe Kindle has been great for being able to add to my reading collection without having to add another room to the house and for travel purposes, but I still miss all the hard copies.
I suppose e-readers also make university reading lists a lot mroe accesible- students who can't fork out massive book costs don't have to in the cases were classics etc are available at reduced costs. But still, kids can't make a fort out of kindles.
ReplyDeleteNick
xx
I would like a Kindle. For travel. Whenever I go on trips I always bring six books with me to peruse. This leads to my shoulder being strained because they are heavy and bulky. I could put a Kindle in my travel purse and take hundreds of books. I did decide, however, that if I were to get an e-reader that I would buy the actual book too.
ReplyDeleteTabitha
I am almost 70 and have to admit that I can not read all my books here and where I live in the winter and the books at my sisters and the books on my kindle. I have to thin or my daughter will have to deal with it when I die. So far I have given away my husbands books but just keep moving mine from one place to another. In my advance directives I have requested that If I can no longer read some books are kept around me for comfort.
ReplyDeleteInteresting story. While it may be difficult, I imagine the process of giving away the books is also one that triggers individual memories and emotions- something switching off or giving away an e-reader would fall short of. I do love the idea of keeping books around for comfort as emotional furniture, even when their initial purpose has passed.
DeleteNick
xx
Dear Nick,
ReplyDeleteI love this post.
:)LRP
Our books have to be double stacked on the shelves as we have run out of room. It can be a problem as the ones in the back row can be forgotten ... but the joy of rediscovering old friends outweighs not being able to see them all the time.
ReplyDeleteI passionately love my books and I adore my kindle, especially the sample chapter facility. But my beautiful, tactile books will never run out of battery power at a critical moment or cause me a headache when I lose the charger!
ReplyDeleteI love my books, many of them top my hypothetical "things I would save in a disaster" list. However, I live in a small town surrounded by other small to medium sized towns, the nearest bookstore that doesn't specialize in Christian books is over 1.5 hours away, that means 3 hours of travel to get to it and back and it's not that well stocked of a bookstore so it's closer to 5 hours of travel roundtrip for me to get to a store with a decent selection of books I'll actually read. I can still order books online but sometimes that's just impractical or includes too long of a wait for my impatience to read to handle. This is part of the reason I bought an ereader.
ReplyDeleteI love my books, perhaps to excess a bit as they exceed both shelf space and room space and I tend to be possesive of them. Slowly trying to downsize but e you know how it is, I find several new ones for every one I give away. Then there are my husbands books, and the kids books. They are both teenagers and recently each gave me a large box of outgrown books to be sorted into save and donate piles. The 13 yr old girl meanwhile is a voracious reader who is impossible to keep in hard copy books. So I let 2 nooks into our lives. I chose the Nook for 2 reasons, the lending capacity, and because I prefer to deal with a company whos primary purpose is books. I use my nook mostly for travel (for which it is wonderful, imagine taking 100 favorite books on a bus trip and reading whichever one you want) but the real blessing has been for my daughter and the access to the many inexpensive and free books available online. She has been going thru a Twilight induced vampire phase lately and its beyond the capacity of my budget and her bookshelves to keep up. That said I also know a day will come in the future when we will move to a smaller place and will need to reduce a lot of things including books. I would never give up the antiques, the matched sets, the books by favorite writers, but that leaves a lot of books I may or may not ever need again. Moreover my husband would like to move to the country, which leaves, as another reader noted, the issue of distance to the bookstores. So I see myself slowly evolving a hybrid existence, books when and where I can, Ebooks where I can't.
DeleteI always think you can judge a person pretty well by their bookcase and what they've read. With ereaders that chance is gone! Long live the hard book!
ReplyDeleteIndeed! It's a lot more socially acceptable to look at someone's bookcase than pick up their Kindle and start thumbing through it!
DeleteNick
X x