Post #2: What is a book?

A book is a memory. It could be a place, a time, a person, but it's all a memory. The memory doesn't just lie in the words and the actual story, but within the pages. When I read a book, I feel like I'm part of it, turning the pages as I follow the characters and live their life. Pressing a button or swiping the screen doesn't quite feel the same, and isn't as memorable. While my generation seems to be the most tech-savvy yet, I was not born into electronics. I grew up reading physical books, moving from hard, thick, cardboard pages to Dr. Seuss to The Magic Tree House to Harry Potter. When I fell in love with reading I was too small to hold a book open with one hand. But I grew up and adjusted and stayed in love. I remember reading Junie B. Jones books when I was sick, finishing three or four in one day, and borrowing Charlie Boone from the Intermediate School library. I would read about him upside down in the chairs at my old house around October when everything was spookier and my house smelled like pumpkin candles. All these vivid memories I have of reading come from physically holding those books and interacting with them.

The only types of stories I had came in the form of a book. A physical book. When the e-reader came out, I thought I would love it. I could get more books because they were cheaper, and I could keep them all because they didn't take up space. Similar to Tom Piazza's idea that size does matter, there's a sense of pride that comes with seeing all of your books on a bookshelf, the different series and pocket-sized paperbacks. The tattered books you've read and re-read, spilled on and cried on, and those passed down for generations. Not to mention the feel and smell of the paper as you turn the pages. You can't see an e-book. You can't see the series lined up. You can't see the worn pages and covers of your favorites. You can't share an e-book.

Victor LaValle would think that I'm "treating a book like a pair of stone tablets," but is there anything so wrong with that? It's the way I was brought up. Moses would have kept those stones even after they were written on paper, and eventually turned into an e-book. Just because there is a new technology doesn't mean that everyone has to succumb to using it. 

Although towards the end of Piazza's interviewing himself, he says that there's no future without physical books. Which isn't true. Just like I was raised on books, kids nowadays are raised on iPads. And they'll stick with them until they die, just as I will with my books. The human race is evolving still, and right now we're evolving to use technology more and more. It can't be helped, and its not bad, just different. The stories will live forever, but the medium will change, just as it has since the beginning of mankind.