I’m an avid follower of The Australian’s A Pair of Ragged Claws blog, a great read put out by Stephen Romei from the Australian Literary Review. It’s not just for lovers of Australian literature: this week the discussion has covered whether or not you could give up books, and exactly what would take priority over books for you. For example ,would you rather live a life without books or without coffee? Without books or without travels? Without books or without TV?
There are two things this post made me think about. One is that I really, truly, undeniably love books. My husband often teases me about how many books I have (it is a lot, I must admit), and no doubt the root of the teasing is that he really cannot understand why anyone would want so many books. Not want – need! I can’t really begin to explain why I need to have so many books around me, apart from the obvious answer that I love to read them, but that’s not enough – then I could just borrow everything from the library (though I do an awful lot of that too). I guess in the world there are just book people and non-book people, and I clearly belong in the book person category. I love to touch them, hold them, turn the pages (you can see my resistance to eBooks there) and it makes me happy to see them sitting on the shelf. Now that I’ve got a little boy to raise, there are new shelves to fill with children’s books and that’s another special joy altogether. (And who says four-week-old babies don’t care for books? I’ve been training mine since birth and now as a four-month-old I’m quite certain he loves our nighttime bedtime book as much as I do. No comments disputing this from child development experts, please!).
The second thing is that I really can’t imagine life without books and, with apologies to many of my friends and acquaintances who manage to go years without turning pages, I have a little trouble understanding people who don’t read regularly. I accept that everyone has different interests and so, in theory, I understand that not everyone I know will love reading. But just think what they’re missing out on! All that excitement, or new knowledge, or drama, or beauty, or whatever else you might get out of a book.
So to conclude: there’s really not much I would give up books for. For my son, yes. But – and this might be hard for some of you to believe – if someone offered me a choice between no chocolate for the rest of my life or no books, I’d wave goodbye to the chocolate. It’d be difficult to do, but I can’t imagine a life without books.
What would you give up to keep books in your life? Let me know in the comments.
Tags: Australian Literary Review, chocolate, giving up books
I am also a book person. I don’t know what it is about books but I love having them and I couldn’t even consider trading them in at a used book store. I’ve been considering an eReader for a couple of months now but couldn’t pull the trigger, mainly because I wouldn’t be getting a physical novel.
For my birthday my wife bought me a Nook and joked by saying we both got a gift. For me, an eReader due to my love of reading. For her, future shelf space due to my lack of physical books.
I was resistant to use it at first, but the eReader has been great. It isn’t the same as a novel, but it sure is convenient. Unlike physical novels, I can operate the eReader one handed while I hold my newborn daughter with the other.
.-= Walt´s last blog ..Book Review- Seven Days of Terror by John Pender =-.
Walt, reading your comment is like looking into my future! Now I finally understand why my husband keeps suggesting that I buy some kind of eReader – he’s thinking of shelf space, too! I thought he was just being nice. I can see the benefits of them – and having a newborn myself, could definitely see how reading while nursing him could work, as I read email etc on my iPhone while I do that now – and I also think that if I were travelling a lot like I used to, then it would be very handy rather than lugging around several heavy books. But, yes, I still haven’t got over the idea of not having the physical book there. One day …
Hi Amanda,
I love books, too, and in a lot of the same ways that you do. I like to hold them, look at them, flip the pages–it’s more than just a literary experience for me. What’s weird is, I recently divested myself of all but a dozen or so treasured volumes. I like having less clutter, and it reminds me of the stories, ideas, and cover art that I really love.
Still, I don’t think I’ll ever go to e-books as my primary source of literature. Just reading a few online magazines every week–on top of writing!–is too tiring for my eyes. No, I’ve still got the need to hold a novel between my hands; just that I’ll return it (or donate it to) the library once I’m done.
Unfortunately, there’s no coffee library!
-bn
.-= Ben Godby´s last blog ..Dealing with time travel =-.
I’m like you, I can’t imagine a life without books. None of my earthly possessions would really match up, so I would say anything except the people I love.
.-= Mark Welker´s last blog ..this is shyness book trailer =-.