a kindled fire...

Mark and I recently reorganized our front room (switching up the furniture and whatnot) and in the process, I realized that together we have way too many books... well actually you can never have too many books... but, rather we don't have enough space to store all our books. Someday I'd love to have a room with floor to ceiling book shelves, but that day is quite a ways off so I decided to go through them and choose some books to take to Powell's for buy back.

There were novels I've read and don't wish to read again, books I bought for a specific class and read the three required chapters only etc. And then there were books I had totally forgotten I'd read... it was like coming across an old friend or a memory of a specific time period in my life. Flipping through the book and rereading the underlined sections or dogeared pages was like looking back at a journal of my life... it was wonderful. Needless to say I didn't collect as many books as I would of liked to take to Powell's, but I cleared out a few piles.

This renewed appreciation of the books on my shelves brings me to this new trend of the electronic Kindle, which is essentially an electronic book. I guess you can get many different books on this one handheld device. I understand that this would be convenient during travel and ultimately saves valuable resources, but the thought of reading a book electronically seems so sterile and just sad to me.

One of the things I love most about books is the way they feel and smell. Not to mention the display of them can be a comfort and piece of art in itself. With everything else in the world converting to convenient electronic devices, I want books to be left alone.... what will happen to all the bookstores in the world? Or libraries?! Will they end up like the dwindling record and CD stores? No one buys CDs anymore, because its all accessible via our portable electronic devices. It may seem extreme, but when I heard about Kindle I couldn't help but have mental images of book burning and cencorship from Fahrenheit 451. Anyone else feel similarly?

Let books be your dining table
And you shall be full of delights
Let them be your mattress
And you shall sleep restful nights
-Author unknown

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