I Miss Holding Books

In 2007, the world of reading was changed forever…by the introduction of the Kindle. Compact, thin, and with the storage for hundreds of novels, gone were the days of lugging around books on the commute to work, spending 20 dollars on a single story, finding a new space to form a new pile of books. 

I distinctly remember opening my Kindle Fire on my tenth Christmas morning, feeling like I was holding the height of luxury in my hands. I downloaded some music (One Direction’s debut album: Up All Night), some books (most likely the most recent installations of the Percy Jackson series), and sat down to enjoy my new gadget. I spent hours at a time on that thing, happy for all the content I could access that only weighed a pound. I got plenty of use out of it, but when I caused an unfortunate accident involving a spilt glass of soda, I realized I just wanted to hold a real book in my hand. 

I suddenly preferred saving my allowance to buy the physical book from Barnes & Nobles, walking right past the very large counter in the middle of the store advertising their e-reader, the Nook. I realized I loved the clutter on the shelves, the smell of a new book, the pages misshapen and swollen from a day at the beach. Most of all, I missed being able to annotate, to highlight and scribble to no end on the pages. The author obviously tells the story, but so does the book itself. You can learn so much from someone by looking at just the actual pages of whatever they’re reading. Do they dog ear, use bookmarks, or just slip in whatever scrap of paper they’ve found nearby? Hardcover or paperback? Pencil or pen? What color highlighter? 

In truth, as long as someone is reading, I don’t care how they do it. Whether it’s an audiobook, an ebook, or a physical one: all reading is good reading. However, I know I can never go back to an ebook. I, for one, will take all the stories I can get my hands on, and that includes the story the reader tells us too.

December 2022