Musty and Wonderful

Back when Wonder Boy and I went to Ghana my sister-in-law was nice enough to lend me her Kindle to take with me. It was fully loaded with books, many of the vampire variety, and weighed almost nothing. For a girl who travels with little more than a backpack or two, going electronic for books is a great thing.

All that said, I’m not an e-reader convert. (Still grateful for the loan though!) Do you know what I love best about books? The smell. I love a new book and how it smells of its packaging and the printer. I love when you open an old book and it smells musty. I also like how with a book you can see physical progress as you make your way through pages. Sure, there’s a page count with an e-reader, but it’s not the same.

People in my book club are falling fast to e-readers, an apparently so is everyone else. A Pew Internet study shows that e-read ownership has doubled between November 2010 to May 2011, a period of only 6 months. And I get it. E-readers give you the ability to carry around your entire library in your handbag.

I’m holding out though. This doesn’t mean I won’t cave someday. After all, after years of stalling I did finally get a cell phone. But maybe if I wait long enough e-readers will come with a built in smell of freshly printed paper and must. (Or, and this plays a big role in my avoidance, maybe someday I won’t be working in a profession where I look at a computer all day, which only makes me want to avoid all other screens. After all, that lottery dream could come true, right?)

Until then, I’m hitting up the library and staying on good terms with all of my e-reader connections.