"All this is his who hath a book."

I read books. It's important to make that point perfectly clear. I read BOOKS. I do not read Kindles or Nooks or any other such nonsense. I read books. Hardcover books preferably. In this regard, I'm something of a Luddite. I see absolutely no use for a Kindle. People say that they're good because you can carry your entire library with you when you go on vacation. Oh, please! Be honest - how many books does the average person read when they're on vacation. Ten? Five? Two? One? I'm an avid reader, and I doubt I get through more than one book when I'm on vacation. That's because most of the time there's a lot of other stuff to do on vacation. And unless I've chosen to bring along a large print version of Proust's entire oeuvre, my chosen book is not going to take up a lot of space in my carry-on. So what's the need for a Kindle. Oh, but I'm told, you can download all of your business documents to it. Why? Wouldn't your business documents do better on your iPad? And I seriously doubt that most of the people who use iPads have a real need for one of those either. But that's fodder for another post. Back to books.

I love books. I love the presence of books. They are tangible things. When I purchase a book, I have something physical that I can have and hold. When I purchase an e-book, I have...well, just some data on a hard drive. Books have a look to them. They stand on their shelves in ranks like soldiers lined up for battle. When people enter my house, they know that a reader lives there. If my library were reduced to a Kindle, people entering would know only that I was a gadget lover. People in the presence of books feel a desire to pick them up, to feel them, to open them, to even start reading them. Years ago, when I was in the Air Force, I got a new roommate in the barracks who, upon seeing my books - which were not nearly so many then - commented that he had never read a novel in his entire life. One day, I returned to our room to find him propped up on his bed reading one of my books. He said he was bored and thought he'd try one. When he finished, he felt proud of himself for having finally read a novel. He read another. Then another. Soon he had exhausted my small collection and was going to the library for more. I had created a reader. I doubt seriously whether this would have taken place if I had simply had a Kindle lying on the shelf. A Kindle does not invite you to peruse its contents. It only invites you to fiddle with its controls.

But there is something about a shelf full of books. They call out to you. They beg to be read. You pick one up. It has heft. It has texture. Feel the hardness of the cover, the texture of the cloth wrapping, the imprint of the printing upon it. Smell the paper, the glue, the ink. Open it up. Turn the crisp creme-colored pages, one after another, see the black words that fill the paper. It's tangible. It exists in the real world, not the e-world. Then start to read. The characters are introduced. The story unfolds slowly. The action, the drama, the tension, all build to the climactic moment. Then comes the denouement, and you close the book for the final time. You feel happy, or sad, satisfied or irritated. You may feel a sense of loss that these characters you've come to know in the pages of the book are no longer with you. But that's okay, because you can go back and revisit them as often as you choose. Because, here's another thing about a book - it will be around as long as you are. I still have books that I got when I was twelve. Thirty-nine years ago. Show me the e-reader that's going to last for thirty-nine years. What's more, those books will still be here long after I die, not copies of them but the very same ones that I wrote my name in when I was a kid. My kids will get them. And so will theirs.

Other pros about books. They don't run on batteries, so they never run down and they never have to be recharged. They aren't electronic, so the won't die if they're dropped int he water. They simply have to be dried out, and they're good to go. And the pièce de résistance - if I drop my book on the floor, no matter how many times I do so, the words will not fall out of it.