Book, Nook, and Kindle

Bell, Book, and Candle is a title that always fascinated me, though I never read the book or viewed a production of it on stage or screen, if it ever existed in those forms, and I think it did. I do know what the story is about. But when I typed my blog title today, that older title rushed through my memory like a hurricane gale. I’m interested in what begets what, and “Book, Nook, and Kindle” took on a fascination for me, though I’m not pleased that two of my words rhyme. Now, when some company comes out with its Cook or Crook program of reading, “Book, Cook, Nook, and Kindle” won’t sound like a huge editorial blunder.

Now for some more begetting, what I started to write about in the first place.

Perhaps ancient papyrus scrolls were the inspiration for today’s ingenious devices known as Nook (Barnes & Noble) and Kindle (Amazon), and there may be others. How clever to fill your dance card with titles of books you plan to read and pack the electronic notation away in a small purse-size holder and be on your way to the beach, to the cabin, or on your business travels. It must be suitable for reading in bed too (something sleep experts say we should not do). A great feature is that you can enlarge the print to suit your vision requirement. And you may save trees.

However, there must be millions of people, like me, who prefer the look, feel, smell, of real books. To hold a book in your hands, to see all of it at once, to smell the leather, if it’s one of those, to use a bookmark to show how far you’ve read percentage-wise, is a great pleasure. The displeasure comes when one has to move books from one house to another, the menfolk say. That reminds me of a sad little story. Let me tell you.

In the early years of our marriage, we moved from a small town to a tinier place in the road where John’s work took him. He decided we would move ourselves to save money and borrowed his Uncle Ray’s truck, which he drove the distance of about 70 miles. I rode in our car, holding our new baby daughter, with John’s step-brother driving. Not long after the last turn-off to a two-lane road, and after an old leather hassock took a spin out the back of the truck, I began seeing books flying out and landing well off the road, out of sight of John’s rear-view mirror. I began to ache. I said we had to stop and get those books. We did. We gathered the lot of about a dozen books and left the old hassock to the elements. We drove on and found more books. But we were losing time. We saw more than one car stopping for our books. They might have thought we were scavengers too. That was heartbreak real. Over the years since, when I couldn’t find a certain book I needed at the moment, I often chose to save my search energy by the consolation that “it must have been lost from the truck when we moved.”

Nevertheless, in spite of great technological advancements in the publishing world, nothing will replace real books. Not abridged recordings, not e-books, not movies, not Nook nor Kindle. Think how naked a room would look without books on at least one bit of wall. And professional movers of your household goods don’t lose your books off the truck.

♥