Books, books, books, how I love books. Ever since I could read I have read book after book. In fact, before I could read I looked at books all the time pretending that I could read them and making up the stories from looking at the pictures.
Yesterday on the packed commuter train into work I saw a woman reading one of those e-book things - the little electronic device that can hold multiple books. How convenient it seems, and it would be far easier to carry around in my bag than the hefty volumes I usually have stuffed in there. But then it also involves reading a screen, something which I do all day at work, and as I enjoy both writing and gaming I am often gazing at a screen in my spare time too. Therefore I wouldn't want to read in the same way, as I am already well on my way to developing square eyes...
Pondering this as I left the train, I realised that I love books far too much to compress them all into one neat, and potentially unreliable, little electronic device. I rather like the inconvenience of lugging around a cumbersome historical novel in my bag (although I think my right shoulder disagrees with me here). There is so much more to a book than the story or information it contains inside. The book itself has its own story.
Take the one I am reading at the moment for example. It is a 1950 edition of I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, that I read for the first time two years ago when I was supposed to *ahem* be working on a mountain of essays for my MA. It provided the perfect escapism, however, and it is just my kind of story. Anyway, I saved the book when my family and I were clearing out the house where my mum grew up after my grandma died. The book had the smell of age to it, and it had gathered a reasonable layer of dust on top to imply that it had not been removed from the bookshelf for some years. My mum and her sister both read it in the 60s. So I like the fact this book has a little history, and is also a very enjoyable read. I made some more exciting discoveries of a literary nature that same afternoon, such as a couple of delicious Jane Austen novels from the turn of the century, as well as a host of other fascinating books.
I like books both young and old. The younger books start to age as soon as I start reading them because, like bedraggled teddy bears, they are well loved! Many of my fellow academics had a pet hate for people like me, who leave books open and face-down on a table, as it stretches the spine. Personally I like doing that to books, but I have bought a couple of lovely home-made bookmarks from Jenny Foreman (you can also find her on my blog list - Jenny's Textiles), so that I can treat my books with slightly more respect. Plus it makes the pages much easier to find once the book has been closed!
One of the best ways of being surrounded by young and old books alike is of course to spend time in a library. During my third and fourth years at university I worked as a shelving assistant for the science and humanities library, so I got to spend time caring for wonderful, wonderful books (well except the horrible management ones)! My degrees also meant spending a lot of time travelling into London to use the University of London shared library at Senate House, and the specialist library of the Institute of Classical Studies. And this is where books became very exciting indeed. I was surrounded by masses of material on my very subject. Floor to ceiling cases jam-packed with huge tomes, and tiny volumes that tried to hide as they sneakily slipped down the backs of shelves. Inches of dust covered some sections, whereas other areas never needed a clean, so frequently were books taken out as soon as they were put back. Maybe it's a Classicist thing, I don't know, but there is some very real excitement about being the first person since 1979 to take out a Loeb edition of Valerius Maximus. There is an element of geeky coolness that surrounds being in brief possession the little red book typed up in both Latin and English translation. One of my housemates was a Greek historian specialising in archaeology, me a Roman historian specialising in literature, and we both got far too excited about old books. They smell musty, they are covered in dust so old that it makes your fingers itch, and the pages are all yellowed. New books are exciting too, especially brand new editions of ground-breaking works in Graeco-Romano culture, when you're the first person to get your mitts on it as soon as it has been let loose in the library. Sometimes the content of such books leaves much to be desired, but they deserve special credit simply for being a book, that I can have looking smart and bright on my own bookshelf...
So, this is really a rather pointless ramble into my love of books. I am being extremely ineloquent about it, and I am sure none of you care. But, what I actually want to say is, how can the e-book compare to real breathing paper books? Hard-back, paper-back, old, new, dusty, pristeen - the e-book just doesn't cut it. So after that brief flirtation with it on the train, reading it over its owner's shoulder, I decided I won't be buying one. And my shoulders and back will just have to put up with the heavy bags until my boyfriend develops teleportation and I can leave the books in one place only to have them appear by my side just when I want them :)
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