Whoa.
There's something wrong with this picture.
Now, listen, I'm as big a sucker as anyone out there for electronics of most any variation thereof - laptops, DVD players, surround sound, cameras. Love 'em all - addicted to 'em, as a matter of fact.
Howsomever, there are some things that ain't got no business being messed with.
It's a commandment. I know it is.
"Thou shalt only read books when they're written on dead trees"
Who doesn't love the smell of a brand new book, printed on real paper?
May I approach the bench, Your Honor?
a) You can't run your hands over a Kindle and declare - "I just love this book. This is the 3rd time I've read it".
b) You can't use a red pencil to underline your favorite parts if somebody hasn't killed a tree and printed words on it.
c) You can't use a Food Lion receipt as a bookmark in a Kindle.
d) You don't have to plug in a real book and re-charge its batteries.
e) "spine, c: the part of a book to which the pages are attached and on the cover of which usually appear the title and author's and publisher's name".
How're you gonna get the satisfaction of seeing a shelf full of those on a Kindle? Hmmm?
f) It's easier to flip to the back page of a whodunit to go ahead and see whodunit, than it is to scroll to the end.
g) If you're pretending to read War and Peace in public on a Kindle, nobody would ever know and therefore, could not be impressed.
h) You can't stack up a bunch of Kindles on the little bitty bedside table and put your lamp on top.
Now, all that being said, I just finished re-reading "Cold Sassy Tree" for I think about the 3rd time. Some of the best lines ever put in print are in this book. As well as some of the most "that hurt me to read it" lines.
The setting is Cold Sassy, Georgia, in 1906, and narrated by 14-year old Will Tweedy.
But my 2 favorite parts (that I turned real pages in a real book to find):
"A good teacher could cover the history of the whole world in two months and spend the rest of the school year on the War of the Sixties and how the Union ground its heel in our faces after it knocked us down."
And then, there's when Will gave a ride to a Mill Town girl he knew at school. Her father had recently died and Will offered her a ride in his daddy's new car. She was feeling down and he pulled into the cemetery, the quietest place he knew of, just to give her a chance to talk. That really was his only intention. But then, "...I don't know what happened, I was kissing Lightfoot. Just like Mr. McAllister kissed Miss Love."
"Just then God spoke out loud in the voice of Miss Alice Ann. 'Will Tweedy, you ought to be ashamed!' said God. I looked up and there He stood in a pink and white poky-dot dress, pointing His plump forefinger at us.'"
"God was indignant as all get-out. 'Soon as I seen y'all ride in here, I thought to myself they ain't up to no good. Will, I just hate to think what your daddy's go'n say.'"
"It ain't like you see it, Miss Alice Ann! We didn't mean to -"
"'I got eyes, ain't I?' God retorted. 'Your trouble, Will, you ain't got no shame! Imagine, actin' like that right in sight of your poor granny's grave!'"
I love a real book.
(FYI, if political incorrectness disturbs you any, maybe you best not read this book.)
(It's 1906.)
(In Georgia.)
4 comments:
I agree whole-heartedly; there is something about filling up the margins of C.S. Lewis, Dickens, Emerson, and P.G. Wodehouse with notes, eh? Plus, old and new books have a great distinctive smell. And they're more like flesh and blood than a screen. And they feel so great when the pages get soft and worn and the cover flips up at the end from being read so much; or when new pages snap and the spine pops when you open it for the first time. Or just seeing the copyright date and Library of Congress catalogue information at the beginning. Or stacking them up on top of the rows of books on the bookshelf because you're running out of room. Or browsing on the shelf to see what suits your mood at the moment. Or flipping through the book to see what you underlined last time you read it. Or having to tape it up with box tape because it is falling apart but you have a sentimental attachment to that particular copy, so you can't 'just go out and buy another one.' I love books. I also need to get out more. Good post, love you!
I have to write my own comments before I read Kelly's because we will say some of the same things. FIrst, I have a hard time really taking someone seriously if they have a lot of extra bookshelf space. You have probably been in homes where there are decorations and knick-knacks where the books should be. A good friend of mine moved recently and didn't have any boxes of books. None. When they were all unpacked (in their in new house with a ton of bookshelf space) there were little vases and photos and DVD's where the books should have been. Hmmmm.
Then, if you're like me, when you come into a person's house, you get to know them in some important ways by looking over their books, by what they are currently reading, by how worn out some of the books are, by how stuffed their shelves are, by the little stacks of books at the bedside, A well placed question or two clinches it... "Have you read OF MICE AND MEN? THE LITTLE PRINCE? Any Mark Twain?"
What scares me about ebooks, is that these will be pirated, it is just a question of when. Similar to what has happened with music. Musicians barely make money from recording sales anymore. Because it is so inexpensive to download, and copying CD's is basically free, the way musicians have to make money now is playing music. Perhaps not such a bad thing, right?
What do authors do when they make less and less from book sales? There is only so much they can make by doing readings. Can you imagine a breathless reader coming up to an author asking him/her to autograph their Kindle?
And when you pass the books along (like the books of Grandpa Branham's that I have)? It's like having a piece of that person that you loved. Can't do that with the Kindle. That's about all I can add since I haven't made notes all in C.S. Lewis, Dickens, etc., etc. (love you Kelly!).
I am SO with you on the real book versus the Kindle thing. Not gonna go there.
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