Book Love

 

Sitting around drinking wine, a friend says, "Well you just don't have an addictive personality."

 I nodded. 

 It is true, my list of vices is amazingly short.

 Chocolate. (and then only sometimes.)

 Unless of course you count books.

 I love books. Our house is loaded with books. Books in the family room, in the furniture free living room, in the bedrooms, in my office and randomly one can find a book in the dining room or kitchen. I always have a book in my purse. When I was young, I would beg my grandmother to curl up in the chair with me, curling around each other like ivy, looking at the pictures and getting lost in the words, in the story, in someplace make believe.

 As I got older, I would spend hours at the library. I devoured books like many kids eat penny candy. I would read a series from start to finish, always waiting for the next one to come out. I set up reading challenges for myself in the summer. I would start at a given letter and read all the books I could in that letter. I would mix in some nonfiction. I spent my summers, in a tall red bud tree, nose in a book.

 I would not say I am a book lover, in the sense that I love books for their physical qualities: their bindings, their typeface, or the font size. I do admire those hard bound books, where the pages have haphazardly cut, so that they are not all even or when the publisher uses special textured paper. There is an elegance to that. I do like how old books smell rather musty and new books have that rich paper and ink smell. 

 I like the way the pages sound as I turn them. The texture of the paper under my finger tips. How an old paperback feels soft and the brand new trade paperback feels solid and sharp spined. New trade paperbacks books have a weight to them, a bulk that belies their small size. I know some people who only like hardbacks. I am not picky, although I trend towards the less pricey trade paperbacks and a pulp paperback from time to time. I know the wait is longer, but they take up less shelf space and weigh less. A hardback can weigh as much as pound it seems to me. Plus when one falls asleep reading as often as I do, it is a hazard that sharp edged hardback, banging me in the face.  I could easily and sleepily put an eye out.

 I know people who are totally sold on used books and will only buy books with previous experience. I wonder, do those used books pick up the book souls of their previous owners? Do ghosts take up residence on page 110 and then collect friends as that book makes it way from owner to owner. Will those ghosts, sneak out and lurk around my house, if I choose to give that experienced book a permanent home. Do the stories come alive? Do the ghosts that live in those books take on the story as their own or do they merely hitch a ride. Do the ghosts put on plays for each other, when we look the other direction? Is that the source of the whispers I hear in the used book store?

 I struggle with e-books. I want to like them. I want to give up the forest killing paper editions and embrace the lithium battery powered books. I want to have 1000 books in my purse, at my finger tips. If titles are power, I want those titles in my purse covered in the sleekness of the case of that little e-reader. The problem with this crazy book hoarding plan? I don't like reading books on the electronic devices. They do no smell right or feel right. I think the story is the same, but it is missing something. Those physical qualities somehow make the story come to life. I will admit that there is one thing my e-reader has on a stack of trade paperbacks. I can read in the dark—No flashlight required. The white screen with black text is perfect for reading in bed, in the dark. This is not my preferred way to read. I prefer to curl up, coiled like a boa, in my chair and turn page after page but when on vacation and crammed into a hotel room or on a darkened transatlantic airliner, the e-reader beats a book hands down. At Barnes and Noble the other day, I saw the stylish Nook cases that LOOK like a softened version of a small hardback tome. Yet, I remain unconvinced. I cannot artfully stack or organize a Nook. I cannot caress its pages and love the earthy, inky, musty smell as it ages. 

 Hard back, trade paperback or e-reader edition, it matters not, how beautiful the physical feature of a given book are, my book love is far from physical. For me, the fancy paper, the ghosts, and the smells have nothing do with what ultimately makes me read and love a book. It is the story. The story has to leap off the page or the screen. I have to get wrapped up in the cloying warmness of the author’s words. I want to be shrunken and transported into the lines of text. Wrap me up in the story, in the words and I am yours. The book that does this gets to stay on my book shelf.

 Even when I was younger, it was the story that kept me wanting more. Did the author hook me? Did they write something that was not like what someone else was writing?

 I firmly believe many people are good storytellers and then there are storytellers, who have figured out how best to write those stories down. Those are the lovers, who I seek, when I pull a book down off the shelf. I suppose that is also, who will hook me into clicking download. I will change with the times I suppose, after all the story is what moves and the physical medium, while it may not stand the test of time, a good story, a good story is forever.

 

You can go to Elisa Phillips' blog at: www.elisaphilips.blogspot.com