The love of books

I was in the mall yesterday and a local book collector was among a series of vendors set up in the common area outside of Macys. I was going to Macys -- I needed a new belt -- and I wandered through the bookseller's area for a few minutes that lasted far longer than I originally intended.

It was because I love books, and old books in particular. There is something about having a book in you hands that is comforting and relaxing. Although I do enjoy audio books -- a fact that I would have denied a decade ago -- there is nothing better than having it in your hands. Even with technology, having a virtual library in my hands, such as a Kindle, would not be the same as holding an actual book.

For $7, I bought an original copy of William L. Shirer's book, BERLIN DIARY: THE JOURNAL OF A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, 1934-1941. (The seven bucks was four dollars more than the original sale price of three dollars back in 1941 when it was published.) The book is wonderful, giving a day-by-day account of the changing events in Europe leading up to and just after the Second World War. Having majored in 20th Century European history in college, I love that stuff.

(And for those stupid enough to doubt the Nazis' systematic oppression, torture and murder of Jews, Shirer's third diary entry dated September 2, 1934, mentions someone showing him around Berlin and he writes, "Coming back, he pointed out a building where a year ago for days on end, he said, you could hear the yells of the Jews being tortured." That was only 18 months after Hitler took office and five years before the war. Even with poor intelligence, the Western powers had to have known about some of what the Nazis were doing to Jews, in particular, and other social, political and religious victims, in general.)

Though not on a par with sex, reading a good book can be as satisfying as getting a good night's sleep. But with the world changing so quickly because of the Internet, I wonder whether future generations will enjoy books in the same way I do. Yes, the information will still be there. But I fear what will be lost is the feel of it in the hand.

It makes me sad but I guess that's progress.

Thanks for reading me today. Go out and buy a good book. And don't give up on writing.