While catching up with my reading last night I could not help but wonder, how fascinating it is that we humans can read. Is there anything better than reading a book? I don’t mean the electronic version you download on your Nook or Kindle with the Kate Spade cover you bought at Barnes and Nobles for $50. I’m talking about the faded letters of a worn hardback. I’m talking about the soft breeze of flipping through the pages, front to back, then back to front.
Call me old-fashioned, stubborn, naïve, whatever name fits, but when I thought about buying a kindle, I felt that reading on a Kindle is not my thing. There is something about holding a book that I adore. Curling up with a Kindle is just not the same for me. In a post-recession era that we live in, I understand that it seems economically irresponsible to spend money on books when you can download them moderately discounted on the revolutionary notepad. However, more often than not, what you give up for convenience; the price largely just doesn’t seem worth it. When you read on paper you can sense with your fingers a pile of pages on the left growing, and shrinking on the right. You have the tactile sense of progress; the gradual unfolding of paper as you progress through a story offering some kind of a sensory offload. While I appreciate the Kindle for its few advantages, I think it’s a sad reminder of the fast approaching technological revolution to which our society has so readily succumbed to. It’s just another example of another tech-toy placed on the cultural and traditional parts of our lives, which has replaced the simple joy of reading a book with something that’s faster and easier.
I remember the hours that I used to spend in bookstores and libraries, digging for my favorite author and how time used to fly by quickly; delightful I must say. I feel you can’t spend those hours on a Kindle, surrounded by discounted first editions and worn copies with footnotes and underlined passages. You can’t write your name in the cover and hand it to a friend. You can’t leave a note in the binding when you return it to the library. You can’t highlight your favorite parts and make notes on the side.
Life moves fast and just because everyone seems to be gravitating towards a life of electronic screens and wireless connections doesn’t mean we must leave everything behind. We can save some of the past; keep the good things alive; relish in the decadent and simple beauties man creates, rather than conceding to all the advances the masses say are better. The Kindle may be the future, but there are still a ton of things you can’t do with it…
Nicely Written:-)
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