There was a time, just a few years ago, when anyone would ever bring up the idea of an electronic reader, I would raise my hands to the heavens and shake them violently and swear I would never, ever, ever give up my books. I loved the feel of their pages. I loved their smell. I loved running my hands across their spines as I walked in the bookstore or the library, preferably the bookstore. I didn't like the idea of old books, but I loved the idea of new ones.
And now...in 2013...I've completely flipped to the dark side. I prefer the feel of my iPad in my hand. I prefer NOT to feel the thickness of a long book, it seems foreboding and overwhelming in so many ways. And I will duplicate books for their electronic versions for the smallest reasons: for old yellowing pages, for fonts I don't like, for large books that are clunky and difficult to hold as you fall asleep. I have completely embraced the idea of the ebook and in some ways it disappoints me.
I still love my magazines and I still love my craft books but even those are going by the wayside as PagePerfect and electronic magazines are taking over. And I wonder if I'll miss those days when I walked through the bookstore with my hands running against their spines or if thirty years from now I'll be explaining to my great nieces and nephews how there was a time when you bought books in a real store and you opened them and turned their pages - that you didn't swipe a screen. I wonder, and it makes me hope...that...someday, my great love for the written word in my hands on real paper will return and the immediacy and the ease of the ebook will be less important...and then I realize there is goodness in both. Until then...Happy Reading!
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