Reading and the Burden of Books

Those who know me know I like books. A lot. In fact I'm trained as a library technician, all for the love of books. Two years of college to work with books and their friends, serial printings and electronic copies. Oh, and the people who use them, of course.

So I think it is safe to say that books hold a special place in my heart. I love the feel of a book's pages in my hands, I love the smell of a new book, the smell of an old book. I like how the pages yellow with time. The different fonts and typeset, the various formats and formatting. I just love the magic that comes from being able to jot down some random squiggly symbols and having them transport hundreds of people to another time or place; to transfer information from one mind to the other and have it be transformed in the process.

But books, they say, are dying. No one wants to lug around 100 pounds of dead tree when a few ounces of plastic and metal can do the same task. While I understand the sentiment, I don't believe its veracity- even as I jot my thoughts down in a purely electronic format. No, I believe the book has a long life ahead of it for many reasons. However that is not what I came to talk about.

I came to talk about the burden that books bring along, that ebooks have yet to capture. The unending library shelves weighted down with unfathomable numbers of volumes, all waiting to be borrowed, opened and read. Or, on a more manageable scale, the bedroom bookshelf. Approximately four cubic feet of shelving space loaded with novels, the occasional non-fiction, magazines and a three week old newspaper. Maybe a notebook or two, and a reading lamp.

Sound familiar?

This is where the burden comes in for me. These books waiting to be read, or reread. Their worlds and thoughts and speech locked away like tortured souls until someone picks them up and gives them a bit of love. Here is where the heart wrenches and the soul moves, for it is here you make a choice. Every book read is dozens of others left unread- for you cannot ever aspire to read them all.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading and all that comes with it. But have you ever felt, at an unsatisfying ending, that your time could have been spent better in another? That perhaps this book was merely masquerading to steal your time? It can lead to a paralysis of what do I read next- where you don't want to be strung along again.

Then there is the culling. Unless you have infinitely expanding space and money (congratulations if you do!) you cannot hope to house and hold every book you come across or enjoy. Choices need to be made. And that I can only liken to the the choice between children. Which do you feed and which do you send to an orphanage?

For some books this is easy- the ones you've read a few dozen times should likely stay. The ones you've read once and wanted to burn should probably go. But what of the ones you haven't read, or only mildly enjoyed? These are not easy questions, and I have no answers.

Even once you've decided which children to cast out, it then comes to deciding what to do with them. Do you toss them out with yesterday's spinach? Or send them to an unknown fate amongst used item vendors? Perhaps you try to find them new homes yourself, by selling them or giving them away. But does your responsibility end there?

And what of art?

Do we scorn those who use books in their art? If yes, then throw your first stone at I who have done so. I have defaced several books in my art journey, with little regret. Many others have done so as well. It strikes me as odd that we revere these objects so thoroughly, yet seem to value them so little. A paperback costs 25 cents at a garage sale, but to tear it up is considered most heinous by many. I understand the urge to protect the books, yet I understand the urge to recreate them as well. This is a dichotomy I cannot explain.

All in all I think books are a wonderful resource, if a bit weighty on their responsibilities. They make beautiful art, intact or not. And it is the responsibilities of books that I think will slow their demise. We have this learned connection and fascination with books that makes us revere them. And I think that will take a long time to go away.