It’s that time of the year again. I got a text from my mom at the beginning of the week requesting I send her my “Christmas wishlist”. After pondering for awhile, I decided to send my TO READ list in my iPhone notes to my mom, along with the link to a nice book light, because I wouldn’t mind having 10 new books to read. For some reason, as I browsed the Barnes and Noble website to look for other ideas, for the first time in my life, I actually thought about asking for a Nook. E-readers have always been something I wasn’t fond of, but something about the flashy advertisements and perhaps the logic of having one E-reader opposed to six books on me at all times seemed alluring. I mentioned possibly wanting an E-reader in passing, and her response was “C’mon Eli, that’s not you.” and she was right, it’s not.
Currently, I am writing this from my desk at school which is just a glance away from a stack of twenty-six pleasure books. My books take priority. They always have. They always will. At home, I have over 300 unique and diverse titles stacked on the top shelf of my closet. Currently, they are at rest, awaiting their move, which will hopefully be to a nice, beautiful antique bookshelf when I can find one that suits them. I never want to let them go. They are beautiful and kind friends, they are evil and chilling enemies, the most tender and sweet of everyone I love.
To me, there is no feeling quite like opening a book. There is something wonderfully anachronistic yet magical about pulling back the cover of a brand new book or an old used book and feeling it’s spine there in your hands. A feeling I can only describe as fantastical meets grounded. Like that book is a living thing. Like all of the characters inside it are asleep in their world in your weathered palms, and when you open it, they come to life. They take a breath. I can’t imagine not holding that spine in my hands when they take a breath. I breathe with them. And that breath feels like coming home.
The things that have been written and spoken about books are some of the most beautiful, endearing things ever said.
Hemingway himself once wrote one of my favorite quotes, “We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”
To me, those words sound like being in love. Hemingway’s words paint this image in my mind of these two figures, shadows on a floral bed spread, with their novels and their big eyes, bright in the starlight. Now imagine if instead of books, if that quote said “nooks” or “kindles”. Not lit by the stars, the two figures are now lit by the fluorescent glow of technology. And all of the books near them weep from the bookstore on the corner, and Hemingway rolls in his grave.
A kindle is not a book, a nook is not a book. Maybe it’s a gathering place for cyber texts, written by authors who are at home lying on piles of their books breathing in the scent of the familiar pages; but these E-readers are not books. Authors do not like Ereaders. I am sure they think they are convenient, and that cannot be argued, of course they are convenient. But authors write to create books. Books that people can hold in their hands and carry on the train and to class and to the dinner table. Books that people can write in with red pen in the margins. You can not write anything on your kindle. Some of the best poetry in the world has been written in the margins of “The Great Gatsby”, this cannot be argued. You can’t write poetry on a nook. Harper Lee, in her magnificent genius, said herself, “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” to me, this quote makes a world of sense alongside my argument. I don’t think I ever realized how beautiful it was to be lost between the physical pages of my favorite book until people began to tell me that the death of print is coming. That nooks and kindles are going to occupy bookshelves and be the only thing taking up their once crowded shelves. It was in that moment that I realized that books are alive because there are still people, somewhere, as romantic as I am, to believe that they are the most beautiful thing in the world. Books are not flawed, they do not die. An E Reader has to go to sleep, it must be be plugged into an outlet on the wall and gain the energy to be read again. A book always has the energy for the reader to discover it’s world.
There is something heartbreaking to me about having to leave my books behind, surrendering myself to technology. Of course, I cannot imagine how convenient Ereaders must be. My bag makes my back ache with it’s multiple pleasure reads always inside, just a zipper away. But I also cannot imagine not being the book girl. I cannot imagine not having the ability to circle the words of a character created by the pen of Emily Brontë or J.D Salinger. I cannot imagine my infatuation since I was a young child leaving my heart for the sake of making my life easier. I urge you all to discover books. And if you have already, and you are now a Kindle fan, I urge you to rediscover books. Fall in love with that feeling, of the cover on your hands. Of the pages and the ink and the margins. The best way to discover who I really am is if I lend you one of my favorite books, with all my annotations and poetry in the corners. If you read that book, with all my tiny little words on each page, you’ll really know me. It’s important to me that print does not die. As Rory Gilmore, one of my reading idols once said, “Ever since that moment I take a book with me everywhere I go. It’s just a habit.”
It’s just a habit of mine too. And nothing will ever change that.
