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One Reason Real Books Aren’t Going Away

A way to get to know me.

“Hi, Come on in.  Let me take your coat.  Can I get you something?”

You step inside, a first-time visitor.  You accept some hospitality, something to sip on, something to eat.  Your host disappears into the kitchen, from which clinking or boiling sounds and questions emanate.  You look around, taking the place in.

You see the bookshelf.  The rest of the room dims, turns into background.  Before you know what happened you’re standing in front of it, eyes and perhaps a finger gently tracing the cracked and wrinkled spines, the authors’ names and titles printed on them.  Some you know, some you don’t.  Maybe some are in your to-read pile (you never can keep up with it).  Those are most exciting of all, because maybe your new friend has read them and can tell you about them.  You pick a volume at random, one you don’t know, and open to a random page.  The smell of the paper wafts gently into your nostrils, the traces left by the eyes and fingers of those who’ve read these words before are almost tactile.  The words slide through your pupils and fall like rain into your self; they sink into the loam of your life-world, send shoots and rhizomes out into the soil around them, grow into the latticework of intertwined roots that have been weaving themselves together since your parents first sat you down on their knee and taught you the magic trick that turns little lines and curves on paper into imagination.

Despite the solitude in which it’s performed, reading is one of the most intimate activities there is. Continue reading »