They're Not Just Ink on Paper

This photo came as a theme for my Windows computer!

I belong to a social media group where members create lists made up of short phrases that describe activities and styles they enjoy in their social, sexual, and romantic interactions. I recently saw that some of my friends have listed, "If they don't own any books, don't fuck 'em."  My first thought was, "Oh shit, it looks like I don't own any books because mine are still boxed - the majority of my books are electronic."  Then I decided that the statement was elitist.  Then I realized that my work dating and sexual experiences were, indeed, with folks who owned little-to-no books.

Books are not just an educational tool. They are not ink on paper. They are a place of dreams where our imaginations create just as much as the authors' words. The text creates pictures, images, stories, connections that our own experiences interact with - no two people read a book and view it in exactly the same way. We envision the characters and prescribe meaning to the phrases and themes addressed in the books. Reading provides us with times to be resourceful, thoughtful, and creative. Authors provide outlets for dreams, anger, joy, tears, fears, and pain. Authors create life, share deaths, commiserate, and provide worlds of information that we cannot find elsewhere.

I purchased my first ebook reader around 2008 (a 3rd generation Kindle) while working as a writing tutor on a college campus. I was in my thirties; my peers were 19 to 21 years old. I loaded my kindle with a variety of free book and proudly showed it off to readers who I expected to be impressed by there being continually more ways for them to access the written word.

The general consensus was that I was not a "real" reader because part of a real reader's experience is holding a physical book, turning pages, smelling the books and the paper. I had the same misgivings before purchasing my kindle but discovered that the screen was a great way to experience a book. I could hold it one handed while petting the cat, I could hang onto it on the desk without worrying that the pages would flip around.  As the professor who ran the writing lab pointed out, I could also change the font size when my eyes were too tired to read the smaller print in many books.

The world isn't static, and neither is writing.  Chaucer couldn't have imagined a world where The Babysitters Club books were even possible, and Louisa May Alcott probably wouldn't have believed that I would re-read her story of Jo and the rest of the girls on a thin slab of plastic - plastic didn't even exist when she wrote Little Women! 

The writers of Star Trek: The Next Generation had no problem with that.  They saw iPads and Kindles before we did. Science fiction has helped move and shake our world.A book is what we make of it, not what it's made of.

Reading Rainbow