On Books

One of my favorite things to do is wander around used bookstores, filtering through the collections that have their own mysterious stories to tell. In the age of electronic literature, I'm beginning to feel as outdated as some of the centuries old memoirs in these shops. Students on campus purchase ebooks and 'vooks,' and yet I sense that all this new technology looses something in translation--or rather digitization. I love the smell of an old book, the way the corners of the pages crinkle, the feel of its weight in my hand. But paramount, it's these tangible books that turn authors into old friends in a way I just cannot imagine an online text could. My oldest and dearest such friend is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. You probably know him too. Now I only allow myself one of his stories a year. I will be terribly disappointed when I've read every ...