Why I Will Never Give Up On Paper Books
Blog, Books, Essays — By Jo Hilder on June 12, 2012 at 7:28 am
I was chatting with someone this week about books and publishing, and how the way everyone is reading has changed. The topic turned to this myth of the demise of the printed book. “Paper books are becoming redundant,” declared my friend, “you won’t be buying a printed copy of a book soon. You’ll be reading every book on an electronic device.”
No, I most certainly will not, said I. However, I fear my friend is at least half right. It seems that the world is splitting into two distinct groups – those who love, own and will continue to value paper books, and those who don’t.
Books to me are sacred objects. I’ve always felt this way, since I could read. I treasured the books I owned as a child, many of which were given to me by my grandmother to foster my love of reading. Anne Of Green Gables was a special favourite, as were the books of Australian author Ethel Turner (Seven Little Australians). My mum however was not one for nostalgic attachments to things, and despite my best efforts to hide my favourites in a spot she’d never find, inevitably I’d come home from school one day and find my book stash had been thrown away in the name of minimalist interior decorating. To my mum, my piles of books were mere clutter. It took a while for me to forgive her.
Such is my attachment to the books of my childhood that I have scoured op-shops for many years for replacements. I have managed to find my most special and favourite Little Golden Book, all the Ethel Turners I lost, and have sequestered in a cabinet two complete sets of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which I still read. I have probably owned six sets of Little House books over the years, and dozens of copies of Seven Little Australians, but I make a point of giving them away to my friends’ young daughters whenever I can.
I have a particular picture book I have yet to find. It was a Christmas story about a Japanese doll, a homeless man that lived under a bridge and the moon. I still have dreams about that book. It disappeared one day while I was at school like the rest, and my grief for it is still palpable. While that book is not safely in my care, it feels like a piece of me is out there in the world somewhere, trying to make its way home to me. Oh yes, indeed, I’ve got it bad.
It’s probably pathological, this attachment I have to paper books. Maybe its because the books of my youth left my life so traumatically. There is a current manifestation of this obsession. I have several bookshelves filled, and I mean filled, with the real kinds of books. This is the culled down situation. I buy most of my books from op-shops because they’re cheap, but also because I have an aversion to new books bought from new book shops. Books you buy in a bookstore have a spell on them. New books in bookstores are groomed, packaged and tailored to connect with your various aspirations and expectations. They promise social credibility, short term amusement, perhaps even a glimpse of enlightenment, and certainly a couple of hours free from the conversation of the boring person next to you on a long-haul flight. The books they have especially high-hopes for in new book stores are stacked up in tall, stylish fashion underneath big glossy posters like a glowering group of supermodels, primped and streamlined and looking like they’d work very nicely on your IKEA coffee table with your japanese tea set and tangle of reclaimed driftwood.
Second-hand books, on the other hand, have had their spell broken. Op-shops are full of books without their former bewitchment – some from deceased estates, some from over-enthusiastic mothers on a spring clean, and some that simply weren’t able to accomplish their mission to impress, entertain, enthrall, inform or enlighten. Whilst some of the former supermodelly books just stand there sulking and getting wrinkly, as whiny and shallow as ever they were, the real books that were never supermodels in the first place do what they did right from the start. They call, like the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings calls out across all human consciousness, seeking the mind of the one who will take it where it wants to go. Home with me.
As well as standing around in op-shops listening for the voices of books that want to be taken home, I have a mental list of books I am always seeking. I have never not found a book in an op-shop I was earnestly wanting. Sometimes it takes a day, sometimes a year, but I always find it. This is why I will never give up hope looking for my Christmas book.
Books – paper books – are living, giving things, worthy of special care and reverence. In amongst all the lovely treasures I have brought into my house, I have a special section for books written by people I know personally. (I’ve bought these mostly online, because books bought online never have a spell. But that’s a whole other post.) As a writer trying very hard to be published, every now and then I go and look at the stand of books written by people I know. There, I think to myself, is evidence that as a writer I am not insane or deluded. There are writers who write, real people in the real world who have made a something out of a nothing – and there are all their names sideways on my bookshelf. I touch the names of my friends printed on the spines of those books, all the time trying to invoke some process in the universe whereby my thoughts may become a thing of papery flesh and dwell amongst us too.
I tried arguing with my friend yesterday all of what I just told you. I tried explaining about the transubstantiation of ideas and thoughts into paper and ink and how holy that is, and why I will never give up wanting to be a part of it. He didn’t get it. He said I ought to just buy a tablet and get with the times. But I’ll never do it. My books – the ones I am yet to write, the ones that have called to me from lost and forgotten corners across the land, and even my childrens’ favourite books – are safe with me. I don’t want real books, and in particular, my favourite books, to be lost forever. I plan to make sure my children know what it means to huddle up with a book made out of paper, made out of something that once grew on the earth, made from the same dust they are an to which they will return. A book is the living, breathing body for an idea or a story, just like a human body holds the soul and spirit. To do away with the body of a book and consume the ideas without a tangible connection would be like only ever making love with someone in your mind, while you both sit behind glass. No, no, no. You need to feel them, hold them, be touched by them and touch them in order to really connect with, understand, appreciate, and yes, love them.
Perhaps my connection to my books really is pathological after all.
Yes, I am devoted to books made of paper. To me they are much more than a way to receive information or use up a rainy Saturday afternoon. I tried to explain to my friend exactly how I feel about paper books, but he just couldn’t appreciate my point of view. I think he sees me as a bit of a romantic, and I think on that point I agree with him. Besides, I sincerely doubt that my own heart, mind and soul would have been quite as captured if I’d read the Christmas story of the Japanese doll on an iPad. No, I will never, ever give up on paper books.
Tags: Books, e-books, Literature, Publishing, Writing
8 Comments
I can totally relate. I am still mourning the loss of my favorite childhood books in a house fire. All my Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, The Search for Delicious, Black Beauty and all my Marguerite Henry horse stories, Little House, – such good friends and irreplaceable.
A few months ago I was gifted a Kindle. While I do enjoy having multiple books available to carry with me at all times (it’s a security thing, like Linus’ blankie), I still prefer my hard copies. I love to write in my books, as though I’m conversing with the author. I love to borrow books from friends and feel privileged when they don’t mind me reading their notes. I love my old books, with the owner’s names finely scrawled in real ink.
So you are not alone. I hope you find that Christmas story too!
As a reader, this resonates. I got a Kindle Touch as a Christmas gift, and as a supplement rather than a substitute I enjoy it. I can read classics for free and play some word games, and even buy an occasional book or two at a relatively low price.(For example, I just read a non fiction book that was practical, but would seem out of place sharing a bookshelf with artfully written classics.)
So, for catching up on reading or playing games, it’s not too bad. But the books I love will always be printed on paper. My print collection will be more selective, but never eliminated.
The story you mentioned is dead on and one reason print books will never fade away. Graphic novels like Craig Thompson’s are another. An e reader can come close to but never fully capture the beauty of these works and others like them. I think “both and” can work, as long as we appreciate the multifaceted purposes of reading.
Paper books permit much easier access to material that you want to compare and also most find that their annotations are easier to use, cross reference, and search than e-books. The one advantage to some e-books is that they are easily searchable for a particular term.
Also, as literary critic Gerard Ginnette has pointed out, all physical aspects of a book, typography, binding, page layout, etc. (what he calls the “paratexts”) affect interpretation.
As flesh and blood creatures and not pure mind or spirit, it only makes sense that the physicality of paper books is important to readers and not a mere “fetish” as one literary scholar has terms the paratexts. It is precisely these elements that e-books lack.
There is huge comfort in plopping into bed, surrounded by a stack of books, new and old favorites. You can’t cozy up so well to a kindle. Plus, I like the way books smell.
Yes, the smell! I love walking into the house of a friend for the first time and smelling that familiar smell…and .realising they have lots of books! I know I’ve found someone who will become an old friend when I find out they have hoards of books!
I hear a lot of people talk about how sacred print books are to them, and they make ereaders out to be almost sacrilegious. And yet, I also hear from those who read on ereaders that they enjoy ebooks and print books, that they see each as having a distinct purpose. It makes me wonder if there’s a psychology behind it. I get the sense that those who abhor ebooks are lovers of great literature, who have had a sentimental attachment to reading almost their entire lives. On the converse, I think that many who read on ereaders enjoy reading just as voraciously but are, perhaps, less particular about what they read—they are the type of people who read both classics and the latest Tom Clancy novel—and/or they read for information.
Nothing for me will ever equal the pleasure of holding a book for the first time,inhaling its scent, and hearing the gentle rustling of pages as I flip through it once in anticipation, before settling down to read.
I did most of my reading as a child in my backyard fort. There I lollygagged by the hour, taking my time consuming my latest book, or scribbling down stories of my own as I daydreamed of being a writer.
Reading is the main thing, but those who rely on Kindle, etc. to the exclusion of print books are cheating themselves of the rich sensual experience that “old-fashioned” books alone can give.
I totally agree. While I enjoy the internet, I don’t like the thought of reading a book by staring at an electronic screen. I want the real thing!