As a dedicated bibliophile I feel the need to explain why I feel that a book will always be superior to an e-reader.
There is something about holding a book in your hands as you curl up with it on a rainy afternoon with a nice warm drink at your side that cannot be replicated with a digital device. The world outside grey and subdued, rain tracing crystalline tears down the windowpane as you escape to another world... only the rustle of paper as you turn the page invading your peace. It is that rustle of paper that lets you know that the story continues... you can tell how far you have come in the story and how far you have to go as the weight of the pages slowly transfer sheet by sheet from one palm to the other.
Buying a book is a personal experience... you go to the store and look at the vast array of titles, the covers bright and inviting as they vie for your attention. Names of the story tellers old friends that invite you to come back and listen to another delightful tale... new names shy as they beckon you over to introduce yourself to their world. You pick up books, hefting their size in your hand while inspecting them and looking at the back to see if this is the adventure you want today, often finding many that you would like to take and slowly narrowing down your choices. You make selections to take home today as a mental list builds of the others you will come back for, knowing they will be waiting for you.
An e-reader does not give you this... instead it is cold and impersonal as you look over a list of names and titles... it does not encourage you to try something new and expand your vision of the world but instead subtly directs you towards suggestions based on what you have already read.
One you buy a book it is yours and unless you give it away it always will be yours. You can throw it, drop it, step on it and even read it in the bathtub because if you were to drop it in the water all you would need to do is set it aside and let it dry before you go back to reading it.
Books pass through hands... from the moment they are created, that birth of imagination from the writer, they pass through hands to you and beyond. People work at the printing facilities, drivers carry the books to distributors, people place them on the shelf, a cashier trades you an escape of imagination for a little money and when you are done you pass it on to another. These are real people that make their living bringing books to you... with an e-reader these people are left out of the loop and losing their jobs.
Every hand that touches a book leaves a story of their own behind... and one of my favorite places to purchase a book is a charity thrift store because I know that the money I spend there will go to help someone. Okay, I also love buying books there because I can get a ton of books cheap, lol.
I love going to the Library and checking out books to read as well... these books have passed from hand to hand in an endless cycle and sometimes I wonder what things these books have seen. They have been carried by women that do not know that tonight the man they love will ask them to marry them... held by a person on their last day on earth before they head off to the store and meet up with a drunk driver... read to a child who misses their father deployed overseas and comforted someone in the hospital as they wait to go home. These books give an escape to everyone that touches them, every escape just a little different as that person sees the story tinged with their own life experiences.
At the end of the day, I will lay down with a book... the world at slumber outside of my walls as I slowly turn the pages until I grow weary and fold down a corner of a page and set he book aside until tomorrow when I can instantly slip into that alternate universe and continue my journey.
No e-reader can give me these things nor can it touch so many lives.
Oh, and if stuck on a deserted island a book can double as toilet paper! (Hey, did you honestly think I could keep all snark out of this post?)
