I smell saddle soap and leather as I turn the old, weathered pages. I imagine where the book may have lived before — perhaps stuffed in a backpack between school and horseback riding lessons or thrown in a box as its owner packed for college.
Whatever caused my mother’s worn- down copies of “The Black Stallion” series to smell the way they did, I always treasured the result I held in my young hands.
I can’t imagine how my memories would differ had my mother read these stories to me from an e-book.
I read e-books a fair amount. I download dozens of novels and nonfiction stories before I travel to lighten the load, and I bring my favorites with me when I need to carry textbooks to class. I won’t deny their usefulness and practicality.
However, physical books have a special place in my heart. I have two or three books in my backpack at almost all times, and I check out ridiculously large numbers of books from libraries when I get the chance.
And every time I enter a bookshop, I buy at least one.
I hear whispers about how local bookstores and small used book shops are on the decline. It hurts to think about this happening, but I know somewhere in my heart that even if it isn’t the case now, it will be soon.
E-books are more practical and can be more environmentally friendly, depending on what kind of device they are accessed with. It is more convenient for someone to buy an e-book in the middle of the night from the comfort of their own home — especially if said someone is in the middle of a series and desperately wants to read the next book — than it is to wait until the closest bookstore is open.
This simple convenience seems to be the most common argument for e-books. But what about the cultural importance of physical books?
Even now, we have copies of the first Bibles printed on the Gutenberg printing press, copies of illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, well-loved penny-press novels from early America and pristine hardcover collectors’ editions of classic literature. Walls lined with bookshelves, filled with printed knowledge that ranges from arcane occultism to zoology, are home to me and many other avid readers.
While it is amazing to have all that knowledge at my fingertips, I can’t help but yearn to bury myself behind the endless shelves of a library, hiding in the physical representation of information.I can’t reconcile that experience with scrolling through text on my phone, harming my eyesight in the process.
That’s why I hope to inspire you, dear readers, to continue to support our local bookstores. Not giant companies like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, but small businesses right here in Moscow. If the demand for paperbacks and hardcovers stays high, not only will our community support business owners who love to read as much as we do, but we’ll keep our bookstores open and our libraries thriving.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]