You know...I hear ya. I have a new Kindle, and I do use it some, but it isn't the same as the pages in your hand, and the smell and feel of the binding and paper.
Sorry I missed this the first time.
Books can induce pleasure?
Oh yes...you are so right!

I see electronic readers as soon to be obsolete, like many other gadgets. They won't last, becoming obsolete within ten years at utmost. I look at themas a major landfill item. Who's going to recycle such electronics? They aren't simple plastic containers, after all, but serious landfill items with no further function past their obsolescence.
I lov books, turning pages, even making handmade books. I also have altered books before, ones which are no longer popular with many duplicates till in 2nd hand circulation.
I'd rather look at a page than a screen for my reading of a novel.
I'm sure I can't be alone in this.
Rated

I missed this the first time jlsathre but I'm glad I didn't repeat my oversight. Several months ago I got stuck in a nowheresville on the Monday of a holiday weekend thanks to car trouble. I'd have to wait till Tuesday to get it fixed and bemoaned the several hours of doing nothing too far from home. But lo and behold there was a second hand bookstore open where I was able to happily kill a few of those hours. I even found Homage to Catalonia, a book I'd been meaning to read since the 80s. Like you, I do hope those hand held electronic devices don't spell the end for the paper version.

Sometimes nothing will do but the real thing. Pages to turn, to stick a flower petal between as a bookmark, margins to write in --I'm one of those truly awful people who do that.

R

Your bookstore sounds like heaven and I love how the first peeves turned around for you. I never ever read electronically but in Manhattan, at least, even the BN's are going out of business and in Maui the single only bookstore, a Border's is gone. I am in shock that Amazon or Kindle or the Nook could not withstand this fate.

On a happier note in South Beach, very small town, we have a thriving indie store Books & Books, and the owner, one Mitch Kaplan is famous enough to have given the National Book Awards. He owns a bigger store in Coral Gables and a third somewhere else. I live in that place--a source for great reading ideas--and where I've met most of my friends here. So maybe there is real hope for you, hang in there, it's so important what you are doing!!R

This is a short post, and still a real page turner! I don't know if gadgets like the Kindle will over take paper books, but still it's hard to imagine progress being turned around.
I can picture the old story tellers of ancient times, bemoaning the printed word. I myself would love to have a place to go where someone, with great story telling skills would wrap me in their words and take me to far off lands and adventures.
Great post and I hope the bookstore survives.
R

As I've said, when it comes to books, I am strictly analog. If anyone can use the power of the pen to keep small bookstores alive in our society, you will be the one to do it. An exquisite post.

I will always love books. I watched "I remember Mama" the other night and was moved by the scenes where the old fellow comes as a boarder and enchants them all by reading to them every night. Eventually, he skips out and leaves them with a bad check and his library. Mama tears up the check and says "He owes us nothing." R

Forget cramping hands...I wonder what all this technology might be doing to vision...While being older doesn't help my argument, I do notice more trouble reading "normal print" after hours on the computer...Is that good or bad? I'll be keeping my books for reading the good stuff...

I'm so glad you reposted this, because I missed it the first time around. What you write here is so true - it's amazing how people have forgotten what it's like to hold a real book in their hands. The only advantage I see to an e-reader (I got one for my birthday, as a surprise gift) is that it takes up less weight/space than a lot of books when you're travelling. But nothing can compare to the physical sensation of a real book - or even certain practical aspects, as well. I would probably be worried about taking an e-reader to the beach, for example - who knows what sand or a splash of water could do to it? But a real book is just fine at the beach, in fact, that's one of my favorite places to read. Thanks again for reposting this, and here's hoping books and e-readers will be able to co-exist.

Hello! I sure do agree with you about books and bookstores, these days. I have a great love of books; turning pages, being cozy in front of the fireplace with a book in my lap, curled up in bed while my husband complains about my "preoccupation with cookbooks" I never heard of anyone reading cookbooks before I met you," he will say , I am studying it, I am working , I respond. Like my mother and grandmother before her, I am constantly "studying" a cookbook, and from this habit I have served him the finest meals a man could ever eat! I especially love these old cookbooks I have collected, sometimes they have notes from a woman and newspaper recipes from the 50's and 60's You can feel the spirit of the lady that used to hold this book many years ago. I hope enough people keep buying books so that books and bookstores do not become a thing of the past. I know I will not ever get rid of any of my books and I asked my daughter, when she inherits my cookbooks; to hold onto my cookbook collection until she truly realizes what a great culinary library she has , but if it never seems important to her, to sell them all together, as a collection , because somehow, over the years, I subconsciously collected a few books on each type of food , from every part of the world and it has come together quite nicely ....I doubt she'll ever let them go, after all, she is her mother's daughter, and she spent alot of time at the library teaching her daughters to LOVE BOOKS!