Though
digital books and e-readers have been on the market for several years now, the
devices out-selling other gift choices during the recent 2011 holiday shopping
season, I continue to read nostalgic editorials posted in digital form online
(ironically) decrying the demise of the hardbound and paperback book.
Generally,
the authors of these opinion pieces refer to the pleasure of holding a book in
their hands: the heft and weight of the object; the slick smoothness of the
cover; the dry, woody smell of the stacked, cut paper bound inside; the feel of
those pages fluttering crisply against their fingertips as they open the book. What
avid reader hasn’t held a book in hand and stroked it lovingly, either
anticipating the story awaiting him or lingering over the pleasure that story
gave her? Sometimes, these champions of the traditionally bound book wax on
about the image on the cover or the back blurbs of recommendations from the author’s
fellow writer-friends and literary critics attesting to the worthiness of the
text inside. And I’ve heard of some individuals who like to read the last page
of a book first, so, they claim, they know where they are headed before they
start. Sneaking a peak at the ending in a traditional book is much easier than
it is in a digital book, which is made up of insubstantial locations and clicks
rather than tangible pages. Writers of these curmudgeonly opinions consider
themselves collectors of one of the most amazing creations of the human race:
the venerable book.
If I
read any posts praising the e-readers, the adulation tends to come for the realm
of the techies, people who invest in every new device before anyone else and
who pride themselves on having the latest, most advanced gadgets. Often these
proponents of e-readers aren’t much for book reading, or if they are, they tend
toward nonfiction and newsmagazines. Their interests favor larger screened
e-readers in color that allow them to quickly scan through their online digital
journals or newspapers, speedily shifting the screen, spreading it wide then pinching
it narrow, zeroing in on the specific text they want to view. They enjoy the
convenience of having all their reading material tidily consolidated in one
portable place. They like their e-reader to be multi-tasking too, to be able to
surf the web, record audio notes, play quality music. Sometimes, the benefits
of the e-readers for technocrats seem to be focused as much on the flash and
hipness factor as they are on the ease of carrying a virtual library around on
their person day-to-day.
I don’t
fall into either camp, and I suspect that many other avid readers don’t either.
We may experience some initial thrill in going digital, but our passion for
books, not gadgets, drives our desire for e-readers. A basic e-reader is all we
need (along with the convenience of Wi-Fi for easy access to more books).
Recent reports of digital books outselling paperback and hardback books suggest
that most readers have gone digital and that digital books are here to stay.
And really, is reading a digital book all that different that reading a
traditionally bound book?
I grew
up living in relatively modest circumstances. Like many baby boomers (though I barely
slid through the closing door on that generation), I didn’t own a book of my
own until I had a part-time job—and therefore money—as a teenager. Up until
that point, the library was my escape and salvation from a boring, mundane life
on the icy, windy northern plains.
As a
child, I attended a small country school in the upper Midwest. The bookmobile
from the city library came once every two weeks. The traveling van offered a
fairly decent array of titles, and over the years, I read most, if not all of
them. Although the selection was small by a full library’s standards, it seemed
endless to me. We were allowed to check out up to seven titles per visit,
therefore I always checked out seven titles. The half hour I was allowed to
peruse those makeshift shelves was heaven for this little girl, who couldn’t
wait to get home and read at the end of the school day. I don’t even remember
the librarians or much else about the experience, as the heady daze of being amongst
so many books drove all other thoughts from my mind.
On bookmobile
day, I could be found frantically trying to collect my seven books from under
beds, behind living room chairs, and on top of messy dressers. (Why we never
remembered it was bookmobile day the night before was probably due to the fact
that there were five small children to feed, bathe and send to bed each night
by our tired working parents.) Finding all the books mattered though. If I
didn’t have all the loaned books to return, then I wouldn’t have all new books
to check out, an absolute tragedy
when that happened. Fortunately, I usually gathered all or most of my books
before it came time to trudge out to wait for the school bus.
Back
then, library books rarely had pictures on the covers or blurbs on the back. They
had inside pages with descriptions, but even these were limited. I remember
that choosing a book was often dependent on a recognizable author’s name, the
illustration on the inside cover and/or, considering the limited stock
available, the simple fact that I hadn’t read it yet. I suppose titles mattered
somewhat as well, but they ranked further down the list. The covers on all the
books were pretty much the same. As a result, I read a wide variety of subjects
and genres. My reading tastes and inclinations were insatiable and I don’t remember
getting picky about genre until I got to middle school. I happily read the Hardy
Boys alongside Nancy Drew. I read Zane Grey’s mythic westerns after Jane Austen’s
witty romances.
Because
I was dependent on musty library books packaged for durability rather than
salability, my early love and passion for reading were not influenced by slick
covers or virginal pages, or anything physical about the book whatsoever. I had
no proprietary response to the books—they were on loan, not mine to have and
hold. My love of books was completely and utterly centered on the rushing flow
of words and the new ideas contained within those ugly, green or brown library bindings
with their titles imprinted into their thick leathery covers. In fact, my love
of books, when we come right down to it, was really a love for stories and
information, not for the medium that delivered them.
As a
teenager earning money for the first time, I was able to buy and keep my own books.
By then, I had become hooked on historical romance novels. (Any literary elitist who wants to
knock my love of historical romance should note that as a sophomore in high
school I scored in the 97th percentile nationally in the history test and it
wasn’t due to having had great history teachers.) Lingering in bookshops for
hours became a happy pastime. Books became more than stories and ideas, they
became—for the first time—possessions. Since books in shops have flashy covers,
I discovered many new writers and their work, thanks to an especially appealing
cover. A weekend of good waitressing tips was sure to be followed by a visit to
the local bookstore to browse for a new purchase. Consequently, I became aware
of how beautiful a book could be on the outside as well as on the inside.
I began
to collect books and I still think fondly on a former series of slender Barbara
Cartland romances graced with ethereal, watercolor-painted covers of delicate, doe-eyed young women and tall, rakishly handsome men. The books were numbered in
the hundreds and at seventeen I desperately wanted to own the full set. I never
did, much to my lingering disappointment. But I memorized those covers as
completely as I did the trite, predicable (but sweet) stories inside promising happy-ever-after
love. I also remember near that time visiting a friend one day after school in
my senior year of high school and walking into her family’s small, immaculately
kept house with polished hardwood floors and walls lined with beautiful
glass-fronted cabinets filled to capacity with book upon book. It felt like a
reader’s heaven. I realized with a start that I’d been born into the wrong
family, where, even should a privately-owned book wend its way into the house
it was sure to be shortly thereafter chewed on by a gummy-mouthed baby, or
colored in with black crayon by a artistically-inclined toddler, or cut up into
squares and triangles by a scissor-happy preschooler. I thought to myself, someday, I’ll have that house with walls
lined by hundreds—nay, thousands—of beautiful books.
Now that
I am older, a high school English teacher, and, hence, so much more affluent, I
have a huge wall of books in my spare bedroom/exercise room/office/library/writing
room. A few are hardbacks, but most of them are elegantly fashioned trade
paperbacks. I’ve always preferred trade paperbacks over hardbacks. They are
lighter to hold in my small, girly hands, and more flexible to read as I
recline in bed, yet still have enough white space to write marginalia. Also, I
think, covers of trade paperbacks are even more attractive than hardback
slipcovers, which are actually annoying to keep on a book when one reads
(forcing one to remove them temporarily while reading and leaving a bland,
plain cardboard cover instead). I will assume, when literary types are
bemoaning the loss of the physical book to the digital book that they are not
thinking of the inexpensive paperbacks. Mass market paperbacks are notoriously
cheap in their binding and materials and
rarely make it through more than a couple of readings before becoming downright
battered and unattractive. I wonder whether anyone would actually defend with nostalgia a mass market paperback over
the tidy, durable e-reader? Certainly not me.
Readers here might wonder why, with money to buy the physical books I came to
covet in my teens and early adulthood, I’d ever switch to digital books. I
suppose advancing age and my aversion to housework (and its inevitable dusting)
certainly have something to do with it. But it’s more complicated than
publishers seem willing to acknowledge in the midst of their ongoing battle with Amazon. The reasons this reader has gone digital will be covered in the second post.
Des
