I want to tell you I remember the first book I ever read. I don’t. What I do remember is my sister giving me an early start on reading by giving me a “Dick and Jane” book. I can still see Sally on her tricycle going “Oh! Oh! Oh!” It was like being given the Rosetta Stone, but with a key that explained everything. Letters put together made sounds and then words. I could pass into the adult kingdom now, the world of books.
I remember . . . the Oz book (The Lost Princess of Oz) that was in the basket of my bright orange Schwinn on Christmas Day. It’s rare to be able to ride a bike in Baltimore in December, but I could go upstairs with the book the day after Christmas and read all day. I remember Mr. Lippman giving me a collection of novels on the first holiday we ever celebrated. One of those books, THE NIGHT LISTENER, became my all-time favorite. I remember reading A HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE on a Greyhound bus, riding 20-plus hours to my job interview in Waco, Texas. I remember being on another bus, then time en route to San Antonio, and opening up ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GOING TO BE STRANGERS and, upon reading the first line, thinking: I want to make someone feel the way I feel right now, happy and excited about the possibilities inherent in this book.
All of these memories would be possible with a digital reader. But, a simple plea: Can we still have books?
Lately, it has become fashionable to mock people who like physical books. I saw a drinking game proposed in which one tosses back a shot upon encountering the various cliches about books — heft, weight, smell, etc. I don’t get it. Why does the digital book’s future rely on the physical book’s death? Why is there so much vehemence?
I’m in an unusual position to comment on this. My current book is selling well enough to make the New York Times bestseller list, which counts only hardcover copies. It’s selling even better in digital format. I have been #9 on the Kindle list for the last two weeks. To me, this is like going to Baskin Robbins and having my favorite order — chocolate chip and orange sherbet. (I know, so weird, but that’s what I like.) I love books. I like my Kindle. It would never occur to me to denigrate someone who preferred the Kindle, or who even felt romantic about it, although the latter is harder for me to imagine. (I can get excited about a machine. Two years in, I love my washer/dryer so much it’s kind of pervy. But I don’t get giddy about my Kindle.)
Physical books, whatever one thinks of them, support a huge number of people right now. Booksellers, the people who make them, the people who ship them. And while anyone reading this right now has some sort of digital access, many people never will. At the soup kitchen where I volunteered until this summer — life has forced me on a hiatus from there — free books went as fast as anything we gave away.
Why would anyone pay $25 for a hardcover when the digital version is available for so much less? Well, why do people buy books at all when the library will buy them for you? Why do some people buy Seven for Mankind jeans when Wal-Mart will sell you essentially the same thing for a fraction of the cost? I would never buy an expensive car, but I will splurge on a bottle of wine. Last week, I went on national television in a pair of ridiculously expensive shoes paired with a dress bought at an outlet mall.
I also wore a bracelet, a large cuff of turquoise stones. I will always remember the day I purchased it. September ’08, IIRC. It was overcast. A good friend and I wheeled her baby down to the antiques fair where i had gotten free passes. (From a rare book dealer, actually. Yeah, I’m that good a customer. Talk about irrational! I sometimes buy books I can’t even read.) The woman who sold me the bracelet was reading a John Connolly novel. My friend had to persuade me to make the purchase, which seemed extravagant. I wear it all the time and every time I put it on, the memory is there.
Do books provide the same alchemy? Some do, for me. Can a digital book do that? Maybe. I won’t rule it out. But I sincerely hope we are not poised on the precipice of an either/or world. And I am baffled at those who seem to be rooting for it, given the jobs that will be lost if it were to happen.
Happy Labor Day. I’d love to hear reading memories, whatever the format.
My first memory of reading was at age 4, when I won the spelling bee on the word “want” in kindergarten. I read my brother’s books; he was two grades ahead of me. Ironically, I didn’t get a library card until 5th grade, this despite my mother being an elementary school teacher. My father took us to the library and I have never stopped going. In every city I have lived in over the past 40 years, I updated my driver’s license, registered to vote and got a library card.
I am by no means an early adopter and I initially scoffed at the idea that anyone would want to read a book on an electronic device. Boy was I wrong. I also felt this way about audio books thinking it was the end of reading civilization if people chose to listen rather than read. I am now hooked on audio books, but only from the library. Now that I am retired I limit my book purchases to one a month (also because I keep running out of shelf space) and use the library as fill-in. August was IKYA, September is Terry McMillan’s new novel. Right now the screen size is just too small for my aging eyes. Besides, I can take a book anywhere and not need batteries
Has anyone noticed the newest audio book, the Playaway? It’s a full book on one cassette and you provide the headphones and a battery. My local library is now using dedicated shelf space for them. I tried it a few times, but found it way too isolating, not unlike being in a universe where you don’t hear or see what is happening around you. A lot like the people you see walking around with headphones on and looking at their smartphone screen and not noticing things like cars, traffic, other people, life.
There is no either/or. I’m reading The Shining on Kindle and will be reading Asimov’s Nemesis on paper. There is not one shred of logic to how I picked the format other than where I was when I saw each of these tomes and went, “Ooooh! Shiny!”
I tend to shun hardcovers when possible, but that goes back to when your choices were hardcover vs. mass market paperback. I still prefer paperbacks, even with an ereader.
Maybe I’m cruising nicely into my cranky old man phase, but when the argument arises, I generally want to yell, “Shut up, pick one, and let me finish reading my book!” After repeating this several times, the whining supplicant asking me to take sides slinks away, realizing that I just don’t get it, whichever it they’re clinging to.
And more on topic, the first book I remember really grabbing me was Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. It was the first non-tie-in, fiction book I’d read in junior high. Ruined The Vampire Lestat for me later on, but that’s a different story. There was something different about King’s horror, like the real world setting was more important than the fantastical beings who chose to invade it.
No recollection of my first book but I know my reading experience began at the age of 3 or 4 with the Sunday funnies spread out on the living room rug.
If you haven’t seen Lane Smith’s latest, check out the (Amazon) trailer for IT’S A BOOK, 1:02 minutes of pure genius. I’d kill for a piece of the original art and the voices are brilliant. Bet you can’t watch it just once.
I don’t recall the ‘first’ reading as a discrete event; it seems there was never a time that i was not doing it. I read before I was in Kindergarten, my Mother says age three. When President Kennedy was assassinated, I wrote “JFK” in my Mother’s lipstick on the white carpet; ordinarily, this wouldhave caused quite the tumult, but clearly was in this case overcome by events. I was 2.
I later used to read the funny pages on my Grampa’s lap, in a wonderful armchair which I asked for and now have. We used to particularly like Dondi, Gasoline Alley, Dick Tracy, Blondie, and Prince Valiant. I used to love the smell of the Sunday paper(which I rarely buy b/c this is a different town, with a different paper, and i no longer read the funny pages). Laura, I think different papers use different inks, because the LAT smells different to me than the WP which smells different than the Chicago Trib. And some are messier in your hands (ink). Thoughts?
I remember reading a child’s version of The Iliad and the Odyssey, which I have in storage that hasn’t been opened in 20 yrs. I never really recovered from that story and those images. I consumed as many written words as possible, though we were (and remain)book buyers and not library people. My Mother says it was shortly after The Iliad reading that I started to write my own stories and poetry. I’ll have to ask her what age that was–IIRC it was 5.
As for The Great Debate: there will always be printed books for bibliophiles and others who can/will pay for them. I can still get a beautiful fountain pen for $600, and while a 3.99 Rollerball accomplishes the same ‘task,’ e.g., they both write, it could be argued that the experiences are not equivalent, neither for the writer nor for the reader. I have both and don’t see why i should have to choose one over the other.
I am an early adopter, but all of the Kindle iterations have not yet replaced the actual experience of reading a book (YMMV). I can’t write in it, highlight, flip instantly from front to backto footnotes to appendices, etc. I only use it for books I conisder “disposable”–beach reads/airport books i’ll never look at again. I don’t want to read on the iPad, because it is too distracting–way too many things can be done on that iPad–and i want the singular experience of reading a book, not reading three pages and checking my FB/Tw/Whatever.
The biz model of the publishing world has been rocked. No one really knows where it will all end up, though we can see from the experiences wtih the RIAA how not to make certain decisions. The houses that are flexible will survive. Some won’t, or will be subsumed by others, all with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But when I buy a physical book, it is MINE. No one can take it away from me. When you “purchase” an e-book, you are really kind of borrowing it. Amzn can snatch it back anytime it wants (cf the furore this year abt the reachback on 1984). How do you pass these on to your children? Do you have the right to that expectation? Purchasing e-books also leaves an auditable trail of what someone is buying and reading, which is discoverable. If I buy books at the local indie, there is no magic database correlating what i am reading with the Terrorist Watch List or whatever. Sorry–maybe too much PKD.
But not really that far out. It’s an exciting time to be alive. I don’t think this evolution will be finished in our lifetimes.
For those who missed it, here’s the link to Lovely Laura in her designer shoes [:)] on Tavis Smiley last week http://to.pbs.org/aQECSu
//karen
I really can’t remember my very first book but I know I was attracted to reading above all else. The first book that’s coming to memoery is The Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas or, one of those guys who set me onto life long adventure reading. A couple of decades later, Patrick O’Brian.
I’ve never really been an athlete though I did play some sports so while lots of girls were doing outside stuff I would be reading. There was no television in my early life, we would listen to the radio as we sat and had dinner, everyone around the dining room table. (that went the way of dinasours for me I don’t even own a sit down at table) Also I was a musician so that took up a lot of my time when first learning my instrument and then rehearsals and performing. So I was never a one note kind of gal, it took a lot of different things to keep me going.
I am one of the people who has been trying to help other people understand that one day there won’t be new books. I’ll be long gone for that thank the stars! But the trees can’t last forever at the rate they’re needed for paper even in this electronic world you still see wasted paper everywhere. Like when you tick the no snail mail bills and pay electronically they still send the paper bills.
I’m sure I won’t see enough people get smart emough to have no books. It will take the governments of the world to first figure out how to feed and house all of their poor and disabled citizens before supplying them all with elctronic devices.
I am a book lover and I love having my books here all around me. It’s my private library and I’m not fussy about what form they’re in. I don’t particularly like HBs, they’re too heavy so for me I buy mostly PB. I have a few people that I have to have their new books right now so some of those I have in HB. (that includes you Laura)
My personal library is filled with all different kinds of books, all sizes because some of them are one offs in trade PB shrug and so all the ways books are published live here with me except the Kindle because I can’t afford one.
My discretionary money mostly goes to books, music and movies so there is the sharing that my books have to give in to if they want me to be happy. I love looking at them as they live in my book shelves. They get moved because I often think of a different way to categorize them but they’re always here, the most stable and sane lover ever.
I’ve recently been able to give some books away but it’s hard to let go of them. I give my very favorite books as gifts and then replace them. I think there was one point in my early life when I couldn’t have books so now I rebel against anything that smacks of “no” when it comes to what I want in books. Books are all I give as gifts for friends and family birthdays or whatever the occasion might be.
My youngest granddaughter gets cookbooks as she loves to cook and I’ve scoured the sellers every year to make sure there is something new and different for her passion. My oldest granddaughter is a mystery lover as is my daughter. My son in law likes video games, he is an accountant and I think he must get tired of reading at work. He reads the newspaper but that’s not hu8ge, Sitka is less than 10,000 people. Which by the way is or was the largest city in the US because of it’s land mass which is a lot of islands. Sitka the town is on Baranof Island the largest of the grouping. It also has a massive mountain range. Ah Alaska what would be thought of as an island would be much smaller than here. But I digress yes I do so here I stop. <big grin>
one of my happiest moments, when they “skipped” me from 1st grade to second, was that i got to skip “Dick and Jane”. A major thing back when I was a kid was “skipping” grades and as i knew how to read, this was pushed for me. The “death of books” has been forecast, has it not, for decades. I DO worry as I do about “the death of newspapers” but as a long-time science fiction fan, I’ve been hearing “the death of conventions” discussion since almost the day I became a fan in the 70s. Worldcon, which began in the late ’30s, just wrapped up in Melbourne. It ain’t dead yet.
A great joy of my life was our tiny Hartford/blue Hills branch library where i was granted an adult card after pretty much reading through the kids’ section. As long as i’ve had chronic pain, books have taken me away from the real world. I have my mother’s boxed set of Lewis Carroll Alice books (hard to pass down ebooks. “Here honey, here’s my Kindle?) and recently found a coffee table book of my home state that my Dad had given me. Along with that coffee table book of photos of New Orleans we bought on our last trip. they don’t work electronically.
And “hey, lady, would you sign my Kindle”? just doesn’t quite….make it. Will that matter in a couple generations?
In the book-vs-e argument, I go back to the technology that produced books in the first place: movable type. It threw a lot of people, specifically bards and storytellers, out of business. But in the end it was a good thing. I’m just sayin’.
And about reading: I loved this part of the post, got a jolt when I read it because I specifically remember that Rosetta Stone feeling. It was in school, my moment, kindergarten I guess. The teacher was reading to us. I already knew what letters made which sounds, and I could spell my name and my brother’s name, stuff like that. But I didn’t know what it meant to be able to do that. It was sort of a parlor trick. As I listened to the teacher and looked at the letters strung together on the page, though, it hit me that if you said the letters’ sounds fast enough they would make words — THOSE words. The words she was saying, they were all right there. I didn’t need her to read the story to me. I could make the sounds in my head and read it to myself. As I think about it now it was the single most thrilling intellectual experience of my life.
And being the kid I was, I didn’t say a word about it to anyone. I just started carrying books around.
The first books that I really remember striking me emotionally were movie tie-in novels. I went to a private school where we weren’t allowed to go to movies so the movie novelization was my only entry into that world. I read a bunch of them, but the one that hit me the most was of Tim Burton’s BATMAN. This was a movie I desperately wanted to see so I read that book so many times I could convince myself I’d seen the movie. And this was back when novelizations included several stills from the movie so I could plug those into my imagination to further deepen the sensation. The other, oddly enough, was BACK TO THE FUTURE 2. It was the first real vision I had of the future and, again, I read it so many times I could run it through in my head.
I also am shocked by the all or nothing attitude with e-books. I think ebooks will bring people into the fold who don’t normally read paper books, but the core will still be book lovers who are a generous and supportive group. Most of the people I know who have Kindles still buy a fair amount of paper books and I think that’s how it will stay.
But again, my views of the future and technology still include Biff and Marty McFly…
“I’d love to hear reading memories, whatever the format. “
My dad was a huge smoker – 3-4 packs a day, so that if he was awake, he was smoking. He loved to read, but never had much time for books (if that makes sense), but he DID own a bookcase (or two) full of various things, including one that William F Buckley wrote, that was all about sailing.
Dad died in 1983*, and a few years ago I was at mom’s house and that particular Buckley book of his caught my eye (for whatever reason), and I picked it up and took it home to read it – and indeed, it was quite good (light and talky, plus informative). As I read it, I noticed a dusty residue every so often, and it finally hit me that a light sampling of his cigarette ashes was scattered throughout the book. This gave me a pleasant pause for thought and recollection. It was almost as if I was reading that specific book with him.
Whatever the virtues of an e-reader, one could never, ever do that trick.
*he died at 53 years old, a point from which I am now 4 years from. Looking back, my own sense of personal revisionist history is being less and less kind to the series of decisions he was making… but we digress!
I remember sitting on my father’s lap every evening, reading the newspaper. I was about 4 at the time, and soon could read the paper by myself (my dad used to make me do it for company LOL).
I remember the Christmas morning I found Winnie the Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner under the tree. I don’t think I noticeds another gift that day, as I curled up on the couch reading.
I remember a hot, humid summer day, reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the first time and imagining Francie looking out her tenement window reading another book.
And I remember the excitement on that December day last year when my Nook arrived in the mail. I couldn’t wait to set it up, and order lots of books! (I am one of the ones that bought Laura’s book electronically).
But, I still love my “real” books. I DO love the smell, the weight, the feel. I love being able to look at my bookmark sticking out the top and saying “I’m just about halfway through”. And of course, as a bookseller, I worry about the “demise” of the printed book – what will I sell???
I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad (he’s 70) actually read a book, yet on my shelf is an old edition of The Last of the Mohicans with his name scrawled on the inside cover in adolescent handwriting. I love it.
The first book I remember reading is Believe or Make Believe because I drew all over it and my mother – instead of punishing me – made a big fuss out of how wonderful it was that I had ideas of pictures to go with the words.
Next it was her own copy of Nancy Drew that I found on an overnight with my grandparents. I got to sleep in my mom’s childhood bedroom in the big house in Brooklyn. They’d kept her room a child’s room for all the little ones who came to visit and I got to take home all her books. I have everyone still.
I find the e vs print equally annoying.
I believe there will always be both. If anything is hurt it will be mass market paperbacks which people tend to treat more like magazines (throw away) than books anyway.
But Laura I have to say that I’m having a problem on the other side. I’ve been attacked by supporting e in a way that I find equally upsetting. Recently I talked about why I liked ebooks and a bookseller turned on me.
Books are expensive. I’d rather try an author I don’t know for $9.99 or $12 than for $26, I’d rather travel with a kindle, I even prefer for reading in bed.
I buy more books than I did before I had the kindle, support more authors, read more.
I always buy hardcovers of any author when I know I want to keep the book (I was one of the 4000 ). But I’d rather buy an e book if I’m not sure.
When mass markets were introduced, people said it would be the end of hardcovers. It wasn’t. Just as E will not end print.But it will open up more sales of more books to more readers and I can’t see that as anything but a good thing.
We have to figure out a way to save booksellers – but stopping e books isn’t going to be the way to do that. But that’s a topic for another post.
I have many earlier reading memories, but the one I love to share is when I read THE BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA. It made me cry, and the moment I shed tears over an imagined world was the day I became an unhinged reader. My mind and my heart wanted more of that escape, of that emotional whallop, of learning about life without having to drag myself through it.
My earliest reads, outside of school books, were all of the Milne books (“But Nanny let my cricket out” and “These are my two drops of rain, waiting at the window pane”) Kipling’s JUST SO STORIES and Stevenson’s A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES (I am not sure about the title). I read these over and over again and I thank my parents for encouraging reading in bed. Which became a life long passion.
I have not joined the e book world yet. Libraries are the best for me. Through libraries I discovered Tess, Spenser and Hawk, Harry Bosch, Reacher, Cole and Pike and others. I was excited when I read and enjoyed my 1st Spenser and realized I had 30+ more adventures to look forward to. When I am flush I buy hardcovers, but Libraries are the standard for me.
Great memories from everyone. I too sat on my Dad’s lap and “read” the paper. Then one day I really did it and it was a Brooklyn Dodgers headline on the sports page. I was 4. In the first grade my terrific teacher asked me “can you read to the class while I take Bill down to the nurse?” Bill was forever having nosebleeds. I picked up the Milne and hoped she wouldn’t hurry back. I am finally contemplating a Kindle3. I am known as a late adopter in my family. Surely there is room enough and time for both.
As a consumer I’ve seen a similar version of this play out in the music biz.– vinyl, tape, c.d. digital. Based on that experience I believe the convenience of digital books and the capacity of digital readers will eventually match if not outsell paper books. But this certainly won’t come anywhere close to making books obsolete.
At 56 years old I was just introduced to the Kindle by my kid brother and my mother[ they both have more tech. interest than yours truly]and I was quite impressed by it. When I’m sitting outside enjoying a drink during what’s left of Michigan’s summer I’ll have the Kindle if I want to read or my mp3 player if I want to rock. [Ok, well maybe just a few Led Zep and AC/DC tracks before switching to somethng mellower.] Indoors I’ll continue to listen to a record or c.d. and/or read a paper book. Peaceful coexistence.
John McAuley
I remember the first time I figured out reading–crystal clear. Carmel, California: Mrs. Luydig’s first-grade class, River School, Room Three, September of 1969. Sam and Ann and Spot–two round-faced blond kids and their large shaggy white dog, very Seventies (The Serial for children?) By Christmas time I’d raced through all twenty one workbooks in the series–20 and 21 were about the Roman gods, so I got a pretty full overview of those guys, and still struggle with the Greek names.
Pretty shortly after that first breakthrough, I started reading all the books in the living room shelves at home, which no one else in the household seemed particularly interested in: I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL, ANTHEM, THE SNOW GOOSE. I started scavenging books at garage sales, reading everything we had in classrooms each year–S.E. Hinton, The Yearling, Follow My Leader, Where the Red Fern Grows, Stranger from the Depths.
Just finished I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE two days ago. GORGEOUS, Laura!
One of my first memories is of the library of kids’ books my grandmother accumulated. I swear it was D’Aulaire’s illustrated book Greek myths that put me on the path to being a classics major.
I also vividly recall my first visit to my future husband’s house; his collection of weird and interesting books dazzled me. I still love to look through people’s bookcases and would hate it if it became necessary to hack into people’s digital libraries to find out what books they read (or at least accumulate).
I could read the comics in the newspaper when I was four and was trotted out as a parlor trick, when friends of family came over. One of the memorable books was Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which I read when I was twelve or thirteen. I knew about fiction and thought the books was made up. It was still disturbing, so I talked to my father about it. He then proceeded to tell me a lot of depression stories, which I had never heard of. I realized they were skipping teaching me a lot of things in school. I don’t think it was ever covered adequately, through high school. I figured out that there were a lot of things I would have to learn on my own.
I’m concerned about the loss of booksellers, if sales of books drop off. I think e-books are relying on the book market to let people who buy them find out about which ones they want. Already there are quite a few deserving books, that don’t find their audience. I think it�s going to get harder to find good books. I think publishers would rather sell more copies of fewer books and that there won’t be enough books I really want to read published or that I won’t be able to find them among the books, I don’t think are as deserving and aren�t promoted. I think fewer book sales result in less handselling and word of mouth promotion. Along with the loss of booksellers and independent bookstores.
I am told that It’s a Book by Lane Smith is required reading on the topic of e v. print. (Yes, it’s a children’s book but I am a librarian-we read everything.)
http://lanesmithbooks.com/Home.html
Warning: Blatant promotion of my profession follows
For the “paralyzed by too many choices” problem, check out the Reader’s Advisory service at a public library. Rather than offering mechanically generated suggestions, a trained and human professional will offer suggestions based on what you have read and liked and what the appeal factors of the books you liked were, etc. We offer the service both in person and electronically.
(I “hand sell” Laura Lippmans all the time although unfortunately, my ‘sales’ don’t generate immediate income.)
Lovely memories here. Anyone else thinking about Scout Finch and her travails on the first day of school?
As a writer, I often tell new writers to step back and examine their own book-buying habits. Pre-Amazon, very few people special-ordered books. I often heard, “Hey, the bookstore sold out of your book — isn’t that great?” Not unless someone the ordered it, or tracked it down at another bookstore.
Anyway, I tell writers to track themselves through a bookstore. What do they pick up? How do they browse? Good bookstores are extremely seductive places, leading us to consider books we might not ever contemplate. And, in the end, there is the handsell. Can a computer replicate this? Not exactly.
I happen to have my Kindle at hand because I have just finished reading the manuscript for Alison Gaylin’s (excellent) new novel AND SHE WAS. (Coming September 2011 from Morrow.) I selected the recommendations and they’re a bit off — either because they’re too up my alley, or because Kindle has read far too much into my purchase of one particular chick lit writer and is throwing a lot of other names at me, seeing what will stick. It’s just not the same as having a conversation with, say, Mary Alice Gorman. Of the 24 books recommended, only one appeals to me. And I can’t quite bring myself to click the “Buy” button.
Why? Well, as I scan the contents of my Kindle, I realize there are books I’m not reading because I don’t want to read them in this format. HOW TO TALK TO A WIDOWER, for example, which I bought after reading (and falling in love with) THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU.
Much of the discussion on digital books centers on so-called “gatekeepers.” This term is generally applied to the big New York publishing houses. (An aside: Outside the Republican National Convention of 2008, I have seldom seen more New York-bashing than I have in discussions of traditional publishing. “Out of touch!” “Elite!” etc.) Yet study after study indicates that humans are paralyzed by too many choices. We may not need gatekeepers, but we definitely need curators.
I was camping on the beach on Assateague Island one September in the early 80′s. I was reading Larry McMurty’s Lonesome Dove (paperback edition) and was nearing the end. As darkness descended and the mosquitos thickened, I retreated to my two man tent and hung a candle lantern by a string to read the final 100 pages or so as my companion slumbered. I have many memories surrounding many books, and I almost always also envision the physical properties of the book. Hardover, softcover, new, weathered, dog eared…whatever it was. It’s not something I try to do, it just comes with the package.
I have no memory of learning to read. I do remember being about four years old and reading THE CAT IN THE HAT to my twin sister for the third time in a row, and feeling impatient because I wanted to read something else and she just wanted me to read the part about the fish again.
I’m reading more and more on screens these days, especially since a client gave me a machine for that purpose. It’s a serious environmental boon for readers of screenplays, since I already have a four-foot tower of old screenplays in the corner of my living room (I don’t know why I can’t bring myself to throw them in the recycling bin).
But there’s nothing like a book. I like to give books as presents, and love to get them (although most of my friends are afraid to give me books) � no other gift seems as thoughtful to me, as representative of a real effort to think, “Who is this person and what would he/she like?” My bookshelves are my personal history. I cull them every few years, but the books I’ve kept define me.
Diane, I’ll take a librarian’s hand-sell any day. The way I see it, you’re putting out testers to the fiends and if they get hooked, I’ve got paying customers.
I remember “graduating” from kids books to adult when in the Fourth Grade I finished A Wrinkle in Time and decided to take ‘Salem’s Lot out of the library – a book without pictures! Plus the book was written by a local guy, which made it even more interesting. (I can remember one of my first trips out of Maine when I was a kid and seeing Stephen King novels at the little bookstore at Logan Airport and thinking, hey, these people have heard of Stephen King!) ‘Salem’s Lot scared the shit out of me, and I was hooked.
As for e-books v. real books, I have to say I hate the electronic readers. I like having books – my bookshelves give people an idea of who I am by seeing what I have read. One of the first things I do when I come into someone’s home is check their bookshelf (and then proceed to check out the medicine cabinet while I’m “washing my hands”). Another thing is that I like the quite visual check of how far I’ve gotten into the book, or how much I have left to go. It’s a little weird that I need to know my progress, but I do.
Physical books aren’t going anywhere. Yes, there will be a market shift toward electronic downloads, but that doesn’t mean the book as a medium is dead. In order to read e-books, one needs a reader or computer, which many people cannot afford. I guess this brings up another question in terms of how electronic text will affect accessibility to lower economic classes. When Arthur Sulzberger goes completely digital, how will the technologically disadvantage read The New York Times? Well, that’s a depressing thought.
I do remember the first book I read. I was looking at the pictures of a Golden Book that had been read to me several times, and something just clicked, and those black squiggles under the pictures suddenly made sense. The book isn’t available today–for good reasons. It was _Little Black Sambo_. That was a long time ago. I was mesmerized by the idea of tigers running around a tree so fast that they turned into butter that S. spread on toast (I think) to go with his tea. Confirmed my magical view of the world.
Later I was bored in school by the endless dittos of consonant sounds & tried to persuade my own children to wait to learn to read along with everyone else, but I was unsuccessful.