Books Can't Be Quite Replaced

I never would have gone into a bookstore if I had not been given a gift certificate.

It was in North Attleboro, and I looked around for a while and finally picked a CD by Tom Rush, and now I play the CD a couple of times a week.

Before my purchase, however, I spent roughly an hour looking at books.

Not thoroughly pouring over the indexes or reading the promotional material on the back of the book. No, it was much more basic. I looked at the covers. Were they high art or something else? How large? Were they a two-foot square or a tiny size? Were they fat or thin? Were they rough at the edges or smooth? Were the titles easy to read or were they impossible to make out? Who wrote the book and were their names familiar? Were they covered with paper or naked? There was fact, fiction, computer works, arithmetic, intergalactic, music, foreign, history, politics, religion, voodoo, ancient, health and many others.

Some I picked up. They had exciting promotional pieces urging readers to read the whole volume and gain knowledge.

Of course the promotions and cover art and varying of title types were their own art forms; they might be in line with the title or they might be wildly out of whack with the piece of writing.

Those items that surround a book – size, colors and promos – deserved consideration for their own merit.

But those are slowly bowing out. Borders in Dedham is closing, along with others.

Print on paper is slowly on its way out. It will take years, of course. Nevertheless, it is going.

No more tons and tons of trees to be churned into paper.

This is, I suppose, good.

Still, there are things we get used to and things we must find new ways to learn: reading at the dinner table without a whisper about good manners when everybody is trying to eat supper; coming into the child’s bedroom with a gloriously colored book, ready to share the book and turn back to especially good chapters and then return to tonight’s read; making up the voices while a child pays absolute attention; visiting a friend, or even an enemy, and learning reams of information simply by reading the titles on that person’s shelves; giving a handsome book as a Christmas or birthday gift; planning where one will keep all the family books; figuring which books will be donated to a library and which volumes to pass along to your next generation.

Soon there will be no reason to clear space in the house because there will be no books.

People will merely dial up the book they want on their e-reader. That module can give you your own personal library in your pocket. Now that is a wonderful development. Truly it is. But we still will have to forego the feel of big book or its excellent cover art. So those will be at least two pleasures that readers sacrifice.

Also gone will be one of the best places there is to meet people.

Large bookstores will attract interesting people who will discuss the books and possibly start a friendship. Such meetings simply don’t happen elsewhere. Of course if the bookstore is really large, it might have a café. Here there is another place to meet potential friends. A group of readers is sure to stir up conversation over a coffee and Danish.

These and many other things have made books my dear friends. They will evolve and probably improve.

But I have been with them for my whole life the way they are.

Don’t get me wrong, the new instant libraries are going to make more literature, art, music, science, health and so many more categories available and make the number of potential readers grow exponentially.

To me, however, a book has a life of its own with worn pages, underlines by past readers, and  readers’ pen or pencil notes in the pages.

Books are precious. They always will be. No electronic volume will replace them.