I Digress

"I pledge to read the printed word"--this phrase has always been displayed on the bottom sidebar of my blog. I am a book-lover to the core and will always remain so.

Now, I have nothing against Kindles, Nooks, or any e-readers out there. The Lord knows I really should have invested in one before I went to live in Hungary for eight months; I literally filled my carry-on suitcase to the brim with books and books alone. But to be perfectly honest, these e-readers make me a little scared--scared that books will slowly fade away and perhaps even one day cease to exist in society.

Because I can tell you that there is little more I love in this life than books. I love books so much that I have now accumulated a ridiculous amount of them. I love everything about them--the way they feel in my hands, the way they smell {especially old ones}, the sound of turning a page. I love libraries--I even signed up to be a student librarian in middle school just because I loved the idea of stamping a library card with a date stamp and cataloging books in their proper order.

And even more than I love fresh, new books, I love antique ones. Antique books are the first thing I search out in antique shops. I love to keep these treasured books out where I can see them, away from our main library of books.

You'll find many of my books filled with quotes and phrases I have underlined or notes I have written in the margins, and I've been known to re-read my favorite books over and over again.

So deep is my affection for books that I would never dream of abandoning them. And though I think the invention of e-readers to be quite useful, I just never saw myself owning one of them.

But several weeks ago, I received an email in my inbox from my Dad. I always love getting mail from him; he often writes just to tell me how much he loves me and misses me. Imagine my surprise when I opened the email to find him asking if I'd like to have his Kindle! Dad recently purchased the latest iPad and now uses that as his e-reader, so he felt he no longer needed his Kindle. Hmm--a free Kindle? One already loaded with lots of books? I just couldn't say no.

As delighted as I am to have this beautiful new-to-me Kindle, I must admit that I have yet to read one of the books on it, as I am currently in the middle of reading two "real" books. In the meantime, I am thoroughly enjoying playing the "Every Word: Crossings" puzzles. It's kind of like Scrabble and I'm positively addicted.

I was very excited to learn that I can "check out" books from our local library for my Kindle. The selection is very meagre compared to a real-life library, but I found a dozen or more Classics that have been on my To-Read list for some time. Plus my dad has so many great books on Faith and Christianity on the Kindle and I'm itching to read them all.

I have owned my Kindle long enough to tell you with the utmost confidence that while I think Kindles are handy and quite fun, nothing, I repeat nothing could ever replace a real book for me. I plan to grow my library until my dying day, hopefully one day achieving my dream of owning a vast and wondrous library filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with that most marvelous of objects: the book.